Dual-color blending based visual LAMP for food allergen detection: A strategy with enlarged color variation range and contrast

Fang Zhang; Chenshan Gao; Linlin Bai; Yiquan Chen; Shuying Liang; Xucong Lv; Jinyuan Sun; Shaoyun Wang

doi:10.1016/j.fochx.2021.100201

Dual-color blending based visual LAMP for food allergen detection: A strategy with enlarged color variation range and contrast

Food Chem X. 2021 Dec 31:13:100201. doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2021.100201. eCollection 2022 Mar 30.

Authors

Fang Zhang¹, Chenshan Gao^{1

2}, Linlin Bai¹, Yiquan Chen³, Shuying Liang¹, Xucong Lv¹, Jinyuan Sun², Shaoyun Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Biological Science and Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China.
² Beijing Laboratory of Food Quality and Safety, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing 100048, China.
³ Clinical Laboratory, Nanan Hospital, Nanan 362300, China.

Abstract

Food allergy has been a serious public health problem around the world. Its prevention relies heavily on the effective avoidance of any contaminated food, making clear and accurate detection very important. LAMP is one of the most potent methods for allergen rapid detection. However, its current colorimetric readouts usually have low color contrast and narrow color variation range. Thus, here we proposed a strategy based on color evolution to enlarge the variation range as well as the contrast to improve its suitability for naked-eye observation. By simply blending two commonly used color change processes during amplification, a wider color variation window, and a near contrast color change, purple-to-green with a hues difference of 10 were obtained. Three important allergens (walnuts, hazelnuts, and peanuts) were tested with a comparable sensitivity towards fluorescent real-time LAMP. Its feasibility for practical use has also been studied. This simple but effective strategy provides a new idea for the colorimetric detection of LAMP amplicons and can be applied to various fields.

Keywords: Color blending; Color evolution; Food allergen; LAMP, loop-mediated isothermal amplification; Loop-mediated isothermal amplification; Visual detection.