Effective plant virus enrichment using carbon nanotubes and microfluidics

Nestor Perea Lopez; Juan Francisco Iturralde Martinez; Chad Vosburg; Edwin G Rajotte; Cristina Rosa; Mauricio Terrones

doi:10.1016/j.jviromet.2024.114905

Effective plant virus enrichment using carbon nanotubes and microfluidics

J Virol Methods. 2024 May:326:114905. doi: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2024.114905. Epub 2024 Feb 22.

Authors

Nestor Perea Lopez¹, Juan Francisco Iturralde Martinez², Chad Vosburg², Edwin G Rajotte³, Cristina Rosa², Mauricio Terrones⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA; Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
² Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
³ Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA; Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, 501 ASI, University Park, State College, PA, 16802, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA; Center for 2-Dimensional and Layered Materials, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA; Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA; Research Initiative for Supra Materials, Shinshu University, Nagano 380-8553, Japan. Electronic address: mut11@psu.edu.

PMID: 38387695
DOI: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2024.114905

Abstract

Plant virus detection and identification in crops is a pillar for disease management, import of crop material, production of clean stock plants and basic plant virology studies. In this report, we present a platform for the enrichment and isolation of known or unknown viruses. This platform is based on carbon nanotube arrays inside a microfluidic device that can be a solution for the identification of low titer viruses from plants. Using our microfluidic devices, we achieved enrichment of two economically important viruses, the orthotospovirus, tomato spotted wilt orthotospovirus (TSWV) and the potyvirus, zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV). The carbon nanotube arrays integrated in these microfluidic devices are capable of trapping viruses discriminated by their size; the virus rich arrays can be then analyzed by common downstream techniques including immunoassays, PCR, HTS and electron microscopy. This procedure offers a simple to operate and portable sample preparation device capable of trapping viruses from raw plant extracts while reducing the host contamination.

Keywords: Enrichment; HTS; Nanotubes; PCR; Plant virus; TSWV; ZYMV.

MeSH terms

Microfluidics
Nanotubes, Carbon*
Plant Diseases
Plant Viruses*

Substances

Nanotubes, Carbon