Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common pathogen responsible for upper respiratory illness among children and the elderly. Vanderbilt University reports that its research team has developed nanotechnology to detect the RSV virus:
Current methods of detecting the virus can take from two to six days, postponing effective treatment. The new, high-tech method uses multi-colored, microscopic fluorescent beads, called quantum dots, which bind to molecular structures that are unique to the virus’s coat and the cells that it infects. In a paper appearing in the June issue of the journal Nanoletters, the Vanderbilt researchers report that not only can a quantum dot system detect the presence of particles of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in a matter of hours, but it is also more sensitive, allowing it to detect the virus earlier in the course of an infection.
When an RSV virus infects lung cells, it leaves part of its coat on the cell’s surface. Quantum dots have been linked to antibodies keyed to structures unique to RSV’s coat. As a result, when quantum dots come in contact with either viral particles or infected cells they stick to their surface.
“The problem with current detection technologies is that they take too long,” says Professor of Pediatrics James E. Crowe Jr., who collaborated with Associate Professor of Chemistry David W. Wright in the development…
The researchers’ next step will be to develop a quantum dot cocktail capable of simultaneously detecting the presence of at least five major respiratory viruses: influenza A and B, parainfluenza and metapneumovirus, in addition to RSV. This should be fairly straightforward, Wright says. In the current paper, Wright and Crowe demonstrate that they can use two different colors of quantum dots simultaneously. The colored quantum dots are attached to different “linker” molecules that bind to different RSV surface structures.
“It’s not much of a jump from two to five,” Wright says. Quantum dots are available in a dozen different colors, and antibodies specific to the other four respiratory viruses have been identified and can be used as linker molecules. Such a test would be able to diagnose more than 90 percent of all the cases of viral respiratory infection…
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