title: An integrated lateral flow assay for effective DNA amplification and detection at the point of care.
abstract: Lateral flow assays (LFAs) have been extensively explored in nucleic acid testing (NAT) for medical diagnostics, food safety analysis and environmental monitoring. However, the amount of target nucleic acid in a raw sample is usually too low to be directly detected by LFAs, necessitating the process of amplification. Even though cost-effective paper-based amplification techniques have been introduced, they have always been separately performed from LFAs, hence increasing the risk of reagent loss and cross-contaminations. To date, integrating paper-based nucleic acid amplification into colorimetric LFA in a simple, portable and cost-effective manner has not been introduced. Herein, we developed an integrated LFA with the aid of a specially designed handheld battery-powered system for effective amplification and detection of targets in resource-poor settings. Interestingly, using the integrated paper-based loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)-LFA, we successfully performed highly sensitive and specific target detection, achieving a detection limit of as low as 3 × 10(3) copies of target DNA, which is comparable to the conventional tube-based LAMP-LFA in an unintegrated format. The device may serve in conjunction with a simple paper-based sample preparation to create a fully integrated paper-based sample-to-answer diagnostic device for point-of-care testing (POCT) in the near future.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. bpingguan@um.edu.my and The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China and Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. fengxu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jane Ru
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China and Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. fengxu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China and Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. fengxu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. fengxu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn and MOE Key Laboratory for Multifunctional Materials and Structures (LMMS), School of Aerospace, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, PR China and State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Structure Strength and Vibration, School of Aerospace, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, PR China.
authors.forename: Shangsheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. bpingguan@um.edu.my.
authors.forename: Wan Abu Bakar
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Wan Abas
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. bpingguan@um.edu.my.
authors.forename: Belinda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pingguan-Murphy
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China and Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. fengxu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D001681:Biological Assay; D003124:Colorimetry; D057230:Limit of Detection; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; D010209:Paper; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems