Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification Method for Detection of Nucleic Acids and its Application

Abstract:

A novel nucleic acid amplification method, termed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), which amplifies DNA with high specificity, efficiency, and rapidity under isothermal conditions, may be a valuable tool for the rapid detection of infectious diseases. This method employs a DNA polymerase that have activity of strand displacement DNA synthesis and a set of four specially designed primers that recognize a total of six distinct sequences on the target DNA. LAMP can amplify a few copies of DNA to 10⁹ in less than an hour. The final products are stem-loop DNA with several inverted repeats of the target and cauliflower-like structures with multiple loops. A positive reaction would be shown as a ladder-like pattern in a gel electrophoresis analysis. Because of the advantage, the LAMP method will be widely applied to research of nucleic acid, clinical diagnosis of infectious diseases and detection of genetically modified organisms etc.