Development of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay combined with a nanoparticle-based lateral flow biosensor for rapid detection of plasmid-mediated colistin resistance gene mcr-1

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 15;16(4):e0249582. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249582. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

A loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay combined with a nanoparticle-based lateral flow biosensor (LAMP-LFB) was established for the rapid and accurate detection of the mobilized colistin resistance gene (mcr-1), which causes the loss of colistin antibacterial efficacy in clinical treatments. The amplification stage of the assay was completed in 60 min at 63°C, and the reaction products could be visually detected by employing the LFB, which provided a fast (within 2 min) and objective method to evaluate the amplification results. The LAMP assay amplified the target sequences of mcr-1 with high specificity. In pure strains, the detection limit of the LAMP-LFB assay was 360 fg plasmid DNA/reaction, and in spiked feces samples the value was approximately 6.3×103 CFU/mL (~6.3 CFU/reaction), which was tenfold more sensitive than the PCR assay. The results show that the developed LAMP-LFB assay will be a worthy tool for the simple, rapid, specific, and sensitive detection of mcr-1 gene in clinical settings and resource-limited areas.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Bacteria / drug effects
  • Bacteria / genetics*
  • Bacteria / isolation & purification
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics*
  • Biosensing Techniques / methods*
  • Colistin / pharmacology*
  • Drug Resistance, Bacterial*
  • Feces / chemistry
  • Feces / microbiology
  • Humans
  • Limit of Detection
  • Metal Nanoparticles
  • Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / methods*
  • Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / methods*
  • Plasmids / genetics
  • Time Factors

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Colistin

Supplementary concepts

  • LAMP assay

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China (WG17Q02 to LG). The foundation had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.