A flexible and low-cost polypropylene pouch for naked-eye detection of herpes simplex viruses

Abstract

Effective viral detection is a key goal in the development of point of care (POC) diagnostic devices. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) could potentially be a valuable tool for rapid viral detection and diagnosis in commercial and hospital laboratories and resource limited settings. Here, we present a novel polypropylene pouch (PP) for detection of HSV-1 and HSV-2. With this plastic pouch we could detect up to 6.08 × 10¹ copies per μL of HSV-1 DNA and 0.598 copies per μL of HSV-2 DNA within 45 minutes. Since LAMP itself is less sensitive to inhibitory substances present in the real sample, we could also detect viral DNA without the need for viral DNA extraction and purification. The result from LAMP could be evaluated by naked eye due to the addition of hydroxy naphthol blue (HNB) dye in the reaction mixture. Since this proposed device is easy to handle, portable, user friendly and low cost, it offers a tremendous potential to be a perfect candidate for POC diagnostic device for use in resource limited settings.