LAUSR

Bioaerosols consisting of biologically originated airborne particles such as microbes, metabolites, toxins and fragments of microorganisms are present ubiquitously in our living environment. The international interests in bioaerosols have rapidly increased due to their many potential health effects. Thus, accurate and fast detection of total bioaerosols in different environments has become an important task for safeguarding against biological threats and broadening the pool of bioaerosol knowledge. To quickly evaluate the total bioaerosols concentration, we developed a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) biosensor based on succinimidyl-ester-functionalized gold nanoislands (SEF-AuNIs) for quantitative bioaerosols detection. The detection limit of our proposed SEF-AuNIs sensors for model bacteria E. coli and B. subtilis can go to 0.5119 cells/ml and 1.69 cells/ml respectively. To demonstrate the capability of this bioaerosols sensing technique, we tested aerosol samples collected from Bern (urban station), Basel (suburban station) and Rigi mountain (rural and high altitude station) in Switzerland, and further investigated the correlation with endotoxin and PM10. The results substantiated that our SEF-AuNIs sensors could be a reliable candidate for total bioaerosols detection and air quality assessment.