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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, December 2004, p. 6963-6967, Vol. 70, No. 12
0099-2240/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.70.12.6963-6967.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Griffith University,1 Centre for Medical and Health Physics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia,3 State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector," Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Region, Russia2
Received 7 March 2004/ Accepted 16 July 2004
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The selectiveness of methods based on the direct collection of airborne microbes on agar makes these methods of limited use for comprehensive monitoring of ambient air; some species may not be culturable, as different microorganisms require different types of nutrients. Also, for unknown concentrations of bacteria in the air, the agar plate may become overloaded, which reduces the accuracy of the subsequent colony count or makes counting impossible (18, 19).
Direct collection of viable aerosol particles in liquid has always been a preferred method of monitoring, as it allows the application various analytical procedures to obtain the most comprehensive information both qualitatively and quantitatively (11, 15, 20, 21). After collection, liquid can be serially diluted and cultured on various agars to identify the nature and amount of cultivable microorganisms. It can also be used for endotoxin determinations as well as for immunologic, genetic, and viral analyses (5, 18, 22). Various impingers are most commonly used for such collections; however, achieving sufficient physical collection efficiency requires a very high sampling velocity (up to 300 m/s), which usually results in violent bubbling of the collection fluid. Due to high-speed impingement and violent bubbling, conventional impingers such as the AGI-30 (Ace Glass Inc., Vineland, N.J.) may lose a considerable amount of the collection fluid within very short sampling periods (up to 2 h) (16). Some problems associated with impingers have been addressed with the recently developed swirling aerosol collector (14, 15, 21), which is commercially available as the BioSampler (SKC Inc., Eighty Four, Pa.). The BioSampler utilizes a viscous, nonevaporative collection fluid for long-term sampling at an airflow rate of 12.5 liters/min.
The majority of the above-mentioned bioaerosol monitoring devices designed to collect both viable and nonviable biological particles are not adaptable for personal monitoring (4, 7, 12) and, moreover, for the monitoring of viruses. Some of the devices are very resistant (impingers and BioSampler) and have a pressure drop of up to 50,000 Pa for the operational airflow rate of 10 to 50 liters/min, thus requiring stationary pumping equipment (17). Other monitoring devices have considerable sizes and weights that also restrict their use as personal samplers. Due to the limitations of stationary bioaerosol samplers, it is currently common practice to assess personal exposure to bioaerosols by using small filter cassettes originally designed for monitoring nonbiological aerosols. However, the above-mentioned desiccation effect, caused by large volumes of air passing through the filter during the sampling of bioaerosols, may dramatically diminish the viability of microorganisms, especially of the sensitive ones.
Based on an engineering control method which was previously applied to the removal of particles from gas carriers (1, 2), a new personal bioaerosol sampler was developed (4). A schematic diagram of the device is shown in Fig. 1. The prototype consists of two coaxial half-cylindrical cases, a 45-mm-diameter internal case with porous medium placed at the bottom and a 75-mm-diameter external case. Both are hermetically connected to the back and top sides of the device, while the external case is hermetically connected to the bottom of the sampler. The prototype sampler (height, 140 mm; diameter, 75 mm; wall thickness, 2 mm) was made out of plastic (polyvinyl chloride). A polypropylene fibrous medium with a fiber diameter of 12 µm, a packing density of 16%, and a thickness of 6 mm was placed at a distance of 15 mm from the bottom of the device and sealed to the bottom of the internal case to prevent the air bypass. A mist eliminator was installed below the air exit tube to baffle relatively large droplets that may have been generated by the bubbling process. A pen-type clamp, used for pinning the device to the user's lapel, was glued to the back wall of the sampler.
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FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of the personal sampler (A, side view; B, top view).
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The performance characteristics of the new sampler were evaluated for an 8-h continuous sampling of airborne Pseudomonas fluorescens and Bacillus subtilis var. niger (spores) bacteria and Aspergillus versicolor fungal spores (4). The viability of sampled microorganisms resulting from the laboratory-generated data was shown to remain high after the long-term sampling; the recovery rate of stress-sensitive gram-negative P. fluorescens bacteria was 61% ± 20%, and the rates were 95% ± 9% and 97% ± 6% for stress-resistant B. subtilis bacteria and A. versicolor fungal spores, respectively. The field evaluation, in which six identical personal samplers were tested simultaneously on a simplified human manikin in an office environment, demonstrated that the viable microbial concentration data obtained during 2-, 4- and 8-h sampling periods were not significantly affected by the sampling time. Intersample variation did not exceed 30%. The estimation of the detection limits has indicated that the sampler is capable of monitoring microbial exposure in environments with bacterial concentrations above 15 CFU/m3 and fungal concentrations above 5 CFU/m3. Thus, the new sampling method was found suitable for the personal monitoring of airborne bacteria and fungal spores.
The present study was designed to investigate the rate of inactivation of viruses in the bubbling processes. As bubbling through porous medium submerged in a liquid has been utilized for the collection of microorganisms, the decay of collected viruses in the bubbling process is becoming a crucial issue influencing a general possibility of using the personal sampler for such microorganisms. In this paper, time-related natural decay of four different viruses in the bubbling processes during 4 h of continuous operation was investigated, and the results are evaluated for further development of the unique possibility of utilizing the personal sampler for representative monitoring of viable airborne viruses.
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Microorganisms.
Four common viruses causing infections transmitted via aerosol, mumps, measles, influenza, and vaccinia, were employed for the tests. The reason for such selection was based on the fact that the above-mentioned microorganisms represent two groups that are very resistant (vaccinia) and very sensitive (mumps, measles, and influenza) to external physical and physiological stresses.
Mumps and measles.
Measles virus strain Edmonston was received from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC VR-24). Mumps virus strain Enders was also received from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC VR-106).
Influenza.
Influenza virus A/Aichi/2/68 (H3N2) was obtained from the Moscow Ivanovsky Institute of Virology. The virus was passaged 12 times in mice and twice in embryonated chicken eggs (ECE). Allantoic fluid produced by the cultivation of virus in 9- to 11-day-old ECE which had a viral concentration of 108 to 109 50% embryonic infecting doses (EID50) per ml was used in these experiments.
Vaccinia.
Vaccinia virus strain LIVP (C0355 K0602) was obtained from the Moscow Ivanovsky Institute of Virology in 1986. The virus was passaged 10 times in ECE. The virus-containing material with the concentration of 107 PFU/ml was obtained by culturing on 4647 cells (kidney cells of Cercopithecus aethiops embryo) with triple freezing-defrosting of infected cell culture in the maintenance medium modified Eagle medium (catalog number 11-100-22; ICN Biomedicals, Inc., Aurora, Ohio). Before its use in experiments, the virus-containing medium was kept at a temperature of 70°C.
Experimental procedures.
The experiments were undertaken in the PC3 protected facility with HEPA filters installed in the pipeline connecting the sampler and vacuum pump to prevent the contamination of equipment. Two types of collection liquid, sterile water and specially prepared virus maintenance absorbing fluid, were used in this study. The absorbing fluid consisted of Hank's solution (6) containing a 2% volume of inactivated bovine serum, 100 U of penicillin/ml, and 100 µg of streptomycin/ml. To avoid extensive foam formation which could unfavorably interfere with the physical bubbling process, the antifoaming agent Antifoam A (Sigma Chemical Company, St Louis, Mo.) was added to the collection medium. Fifty milliliters of freshly prepared concentrated suspension of each virus was placed into the sampler. Three devices operating in parallel were employed for each experimental run. All samplers charged with viral suspension operated continuously aspirating HEPA-filtered air at 4 liters/min (standard sampling flow rate) during 4 h. The experiments were undertaken at room conditions with a temperature of 24°C and relative humidity of around 48%. Such temperature and relative humidity provided "low-evaporation" conditions and allowed samplers to run for up to 4 h with minimal (less than 5%) evaporative losses of viral suspension. One milliliter of suspension was collected from each sampler after 0, 1, 2, and 4 h of operation. The standard plaque assay technique was used for determination of virus concentrations of mumps, measles, and vaccinia viruses in the collected suspension samples. First, the viral suspension was diluted in maintenance medium containing antibiotics. Eight 10-fold serial dilutions were then made, and 100 µl was added to confluent Vero cell monolayers in 24-well cluster plates (Costar, Pleasanton, Calif.). The virus was allowed to adsorb for 1 h at 37°C in a humidified incubator in a 5% CO2 atmosphere. The cluster plates were rocked every 10 to 15 min, fluid was aspirated after 1 h, and 2 ml of overlay 1% agar (Difco) on RPMI 1640 (10) medium (containing 2% fetal calf serum and antibiotics) was added. Cells were incubated for 6 days at 37°C in a humidified incubator in a 5% CO2 atmosphere, at which time cell monolayers were stained with neutral red and plaques were enumerated (9). The results were calculated as the PFU/milliliter of suspension.
The titration on 10-day-old chicken embryo procedure (6) was used to identify the concentration of the influenza virus in the collecting liquid. Tenfold dilutions of the viral suspension collected after 0, 1, 2, and 4 h of the sampler operation were inoculated into the embryonated eggs' amniotic sacs following incubation of the eggs for 72 h. The results of titration were expressed as the EID50/milliliter of suspension.
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FIG. 2. Time-related concentration of influenza virus in the collection fluid. Error bars represent standard deviations of at least three experimental runs.
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FIG. 5. Time-related concentration of vaccinia virus in the collection fluid. Error bars represent standard deviations of at least three experimental runs.
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FIG. 3. Time-related concentration of measles virus in the collection fluid. Error bars represent standard deviations of at least three experimental runs.
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FIG. 4. Time-related concentration of mumps virus in the collection fluid. Error bars represent standard deviations of at least three experimental runs.
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TABLE 1. Statistical significance of the differences in viral survival rates in sterile water and maintenance medium as analyzed by a standard single-factor analysis of variance test ( = 0.05)a
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Four microorganisms representing both stress-sensitive (influenza, mumps, and measles) and robust (vaccinia) viruses were chosen for this research. All of the microorganisms were found to be sufficiently survivable in the bubbling processes even during 4 h of continuous device operation. It was found that the decay rate of all stress-sensitive viruses employed in this research was relatively high during bubbling through sterile water and exceeded 2.5 log after 4 h of device operation. The robust vaccinia virus did not show noticeable decay for the entire operational procedure. However, the inactivation rate could be significantly decreased by using alternative fluids. The virus maintenance fluid allowed the improvement of this parameter by more than 1.2 log for all stress-sensitive microorganisms. Since the virus maintenance fluid did not contribute to alterations in the physical bubbling process (no extra foam was generated, the physical efficiency of particle collection was the same as that of sterile water, and no increase in hydrodynamic resistance of the device was noticed), it is recommended for use as the most suitable fluid for the virus collection procedure. Also, the results of statistical analysis show that for all three stress-sensitive microorganisms, the difference in survival rates between bubbling in maintenance liquid and bubbling in sterile water is statistically significant. The robust vaccinia virus demonstrated no such difference throughout the entire device operation.
Finally, it should be noted that the research procedure used in this project considers viruses that are exposed to the bubbling regime throughout the entire operation of the sampler. In reality, the microorganisms could be collected by the device throughout the whole sampling time, which would minimize exposure for the microorganisms that arrive later and correspondingly provide a higher recovery rate than the theoretical one.
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