. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Oct 1.

Published in final edited form as: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2017 May 10;140(4):933–949. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2017.04.024

Table 1.

Recent and Emerging Technologies for Indoor Exposure Assessment of Biologic Environmental Exposures

	Description/Comments
*Allergens*
Fluorescent Multiplex Array(6–8)	Bead-based fluorescent suspension array allows for simultaneous detection of up to 11 allergens. Also being developed for food allergens.
Biosensors(16–19)	Variety of sensor technologies (AAO film, gold nanoparticle, magnetic beads, DNA-stem loop probe). High sensitivity; could be smart phone enabled for personal exposure measures.
Mass Spectrometry(13–15)	Fragmentation of analyte and quantification of mass to charge units. Methods developed for grass pollen, food allergens. High sensitivity, but high throughput capacity is limited; measurements are expensive
*Bacteria*
16S rDNA microarrays(33)	Requires higher quantities (~500ng) of 16S rDNA compared to sequencing. Broad range of taxa identifiable, but some rare micro-organisms may be missed.
16S rDNA sequencing(25–28, 33–35)	16S rDNA is amplified and sequenced. Sequencing technologies: Roche 454 pyrosequencing, Illumina HiSeq, MiSeq, Ion Torrent, PacBio. Reference databases for comparison: Greengenes, Ribosomal Database Project (RDP).
*Fungi*
18S/28S/ITS rDNA sequencing(29, 30, 36)	rDNA from 18S, 28S, or ITS regions is amplified and sequenced. Sequencing technologies: Roche 454 pyrosequencing, Illumina HiSeq, MiSeq, Ion Torrent, PacBio. Reference databases (SILVA, FMP) limited but increasing.
*All Biologics*
Whole genome shotgun sequencing(34)	All DNA from an environmental sample is extracted and sequenced. More expensive than rDNA methods, often less depth taxonomically for lower abundance microbes. Offers potential for functional metagenomics (i.e. abundance of microbial metabolic pathway genes).