AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Association of Virus Content with Its Carrying Particle Size
ZHILI ZUO, Thomas Kuehn, Sunil Kumar, Yogesh Chander, Sagar Goyal, Jessica Appert, Peter Raynor, Song Ge, David Pui, University of Minnesota
Abstract Number: 147 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Airborne transmission of viral diseases heavily depends on the size of the virus-carrying particles, since particle size governs many aspects such as the transport of virus aerosol in air, deposition within the human respiratory tract, and control by filtration. A primary mode in the submicron size range has been found for the size distribution of human expiratory particles. However, how the virus is distributed among particles of different sizes is not well understood.
The objectives of this laboratory study were to quantify virus content as a function of particle size and to determine virus survivability in the airborne state. Five surrogate viruses (MS2 bacteriophage, human adenovirus, transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus, swine influenza virus, and avian influenza virus) were aerosolized, size-selected (100-450 nm) using a differential mobility analyzer, and collected onto gelatin filters. Uranine dye was also nebulized with the virus, serving as a chemical tracer. The resulting particle size distribution was determined using a scanning mobility particle sizer. The collected samples were analyzed by infectivity assays, quantitative PCR, and spectrofluorometry.
Results using MS2 bacteriophage suggest that the viable and total virus distributions are better represented by the particle volume rather than the number distribution. The amount of virus per particle increased with particle size, which could be described by a power-law relationship. However, the survivability of airborne virus was not significantly affected by particle size. These results will help better understand disease transmission by virus aerosols. Experiments are ongoing with the four animal viruses and the comparison of the five viruses is presented.