Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification as Point-of-Care Diagnosis for Neglected Parasitic Infections

Abstract

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has placed twenty diseases into a group known as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), twelve of them being parasitic diseases: Chagas’ disease, cysticercosis/taeniasis, echinococcosis, food-borne trematodiasis, human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis (river blindness), schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis (ascariasis, hookworm, trichuriasis), guinea-worm and scabies. Such diseases affect millions of people in developing countries where one of the main problems concerning the control of these diseases is diagnosis-based due to the most affected areas usually being far from laboratories having suitable infrastructure and/or being equipped with sophisticated equipment. Advances have been made during the last two decades regarding standardising and introducing techniques enabling diagnoses to be made in remote places, i.e., the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technique. This technique’s advantages include being able to perform it using simple equipment, diagnosis made directly in the field, low cost of each test and the technique’s high specificity. Using this technique could thus contribute toward neglected parasite infection (NPI) control and eradication programmes. This review describes the advances made to date regarding LAMP tests, as it has been found that even though several studies have been conducted concerning most NPI, information is scarce for others.

Molecular Techniques as Alternatives of Diagnostic Tools in China as Schistosomiasis Moving towards Elimination

“…The LAMP technique, which uses isothermal conditions to amplify DNA, is relatively simple, cost-effective, rapid, and more field-friendly compared with commonly used PCR-based methods [ 51 , 112 ]. Isothermal amplification does not require specific equipment, such as a thermocycler, electrophoresis apparatus, UV transilluminator, etc., while only a heating block or hot water bath is required for the reaction to progress [ 83 , 113 , 114 ]. The amplification results can be judged by precipitation turbidity of magnesium pyrophosphate or color reaction with the naked eye [ 115 ].…”

Advances in molecular infectious diseases testing in the time of COVID-19

“…Proponents of these technologies have an ultimate goal of leveraging them to create highly sensitive and specific POC molecular tests [35] , [39] , [40] , [41] , [42] . Research has yielded amenable extraction-free procedures such as Heating Unextracted Diagnostic Samples to Obliterate Nucleases (HUDSON) and Streamlined Highlighting of Infections to Navigate Epidemics (SHINE), and various strategies for one-tube testing, even with combination isothermal amplification/CRISPR tests [35] , [43] , [44] , [45] .…”

Context-Specific Procedures for the Diagnosis of Human Schistosomiasis – A Mini Review

“…NAATs have also demonstrated to be very useful for detection and strain typing of hybrid schistosome infections (3). To overcome the need for expensive laboratory equipment and highly trained personnel, more field-friendly alternatives have been developed, such as for example loopmediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) (64,65) and recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) (6,66), although both need further validation.…”