Development of a Field-Applicable Immunofluorescence Chip for Adenovirus Monitoring in Groundwater

Bank filtration is widely used for producing drinking water; however, the increasing contamination of surface waters by human-pathogenic viruses, particularly adenoviruses, poses growing challenges to the drinking water supply under climate-driven hydrological extremes. Conventional groundwater quality monitoring primarily focuses on bacterial indicators, while viral surveillance remains limited and is generally not available on-site. Therefore, we developed a novel, field-applicable immunofluorescence chip for the adenovirus monitoring in groundwater within the project VIRUMEX. The antibody-functionalized polymer bead–based virus detection system allows near real-time monitoring either directly in groundwater wells or via an autonomous flow-through setup. Experiments demonstrated full chip functionality under both laboratory and field conditions, which, in the first step, allows for the screening of virus-positive and virus-negative samples at low ng/mL adenovirus protein concentrations. Although subject to further refinement, the results demonstrate that the prototype chip enables reliable, rapid, and qualitative detection of adenoviruses, complementing conventional PCR-based monitoring.