Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Methods for Diagnosis of Bacterial Meningitis

Abstract

The rapid, accurate, and efficient identification of an infectious disease is critical to ensure timely clinical treatment and prevention in public health settings. In 2015, meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Neisseria meningitidis was responsible for 379,200 (range: 322,700–444,700) deaths. Clinical features alone cannot determine whether bacterial meningitis is present; an analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is essential. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is a nucleic acid amplification method offering an alternative to polymerase chain reaction (PCR). LAMP-based assays for detection of three leading bacteria in CSF for diagnosis of meningitis have been established. The typing assays using LAMP for detection of meningococcal serogroups A, B, C, W, X, and Y as well as H. influenzae serotypes a, b, c, d, e, and f were launched. In comparative analysis of the meningitis pathogen assays, LAMP assays did not yield false negative results, and the detection rate of LAMP assays was superior compared with PCR or conventional culture methods. LAMP assays provide accurate and rapid test results to detect major bacterial meningitis pathogens. Accumulating evidence suggests that LAMP assays have the potential to provide urgently needed diagnostics for bacterial meningitis in resource-limited settings of both developed and developing countries.

A LAMP at the end of the tunnel: A rapid, field deployable assay for the kauri dieback pathogen, Phytophthora agathidicida

“…In particular, loopmediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), an approach that combines rapid amplification with high specificity and sensitivity, is rapidly becoming an important diagnostic tool, especially for point of care applications. There are now numerous examples of LAMP tests for applications in human medicine [e.g., 19,20], agriculture [e.g., 21,22], and animal health [e.g., 23,24]. LAMP has several features that make it particularly well suited to non-laboratory applications.…”

Peer Review #1 of "Simultaneous rapid detection of Hantaan virus and Seoul virus using RT-LAMP in rats (v0.1)"

“…Since its development, LAMP has been widely applied in diagnosis of clinical illness, quantitative and qualitative detection of epidemic bacteria and viruses, and gender determination of animal embryos (Mori Y, Notomi T et al, 2009;Seki M et al, 2018;Guo XG et al, 2018;Zheng S et al, 2018;Hirayama H et al, 2006). Hantaviruses are among the most important zoonotic pathogens of humans and the subject of heightened global attention (Guo et al, 2013), and previous studies show that rodents have long been recognized as the principal reservoirs of hantaviruses (Myriam et al, 2016), so it is important to develop effectively measures to investigate HFRS infection in rodents in the wild.…”

Diagnostic accuracy of the LAMP assay for Neisseria meningitidis

“…But it is unknown of the carriage rate in healthy individuals at present [1] . Based on capsular polysaccharides, there are 13 serogroups of this species (A, B, C, D, E, H, I, K, L, W, X, Y, and Z) [2] Serogroups A, B, C, Y, and W-135 are mainly responsible for human diseases [3], and serogroups A and C are mainly responsible for meningitis. Meanwhile we acknowledge other groups are severe as group B, Y and W135, they cause areas.…”