Development of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)-based electrochemical test for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2

Khushboo Borah Slater; Muhammad Ahmad; Aurore Poirier; Ash Stott; Bianca Sica Siedler; Matthew Brownsword; Jai Mehat; Joanna Urbaniec; Nicolas Locker; Yunlong Zhao; Roberto La Ragione; S Ravi P Silva; Johnjoe McFadden

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107570

Development of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)-based electrochemical test for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2

iScience. 2023 Aug 9;26(9):107570. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107570. eCollection 2023 Sep 15.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ School of Biosciences, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK.
² Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK.
³ School of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7AL, UK.

Abstract

Rapid, reliable, sensitive, portable, and accurate diagnostics are required to control disease outbreaks such as COVID-19 that pose an immense burden on human health and the global economy. Here we developed a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)-based electrochemical test for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. The test is based on the oxidation-reduction reaction between pyrophosphates (generated from positive LAMP reaction) and molybdate that is detected by cyclic voltammetry using inexpensive and disposable carbon screen printed electrodes. Our test showed higher sensitivity (detecting as low as 5.29 RNA copies/μL) compared to the conventional fluorescent reverse transcriptase (RT)-LAMP. We validated our tests using human serum and saliva spiked with SARS-CoV-2 RNA and clinical (saliva and nasal-pharyngeal) swab samples demonstrating 100% specificity and 93.33% sensitivity. Our assay provides a rapid, specific, and sensitive test with an electrochemical readout in less than 45 min that could be adapted for point-of-care settings.

Keywords: Devices; Diagnostic technique in health technology.