Issue 45, 2018

Simple lateral flow assays for microbial detection in stool

Abstract

Diarrheal diseases claim the lives of 1300 children daily, mostly in the developing world. We have developed a simple lateral flow assay capable of detecting E. coli and EPEC DNA and RNA rapidly (<15 minutes) at the point-of-need, directly from stool without nucleic acid extraction or molecular amplification. The limit of detection of the method is 1 nM using synthetic DNA target substrates spiked into stool. However, due to the endogenous amplification of the 23S rRNA targets, we were able to detect the endogenous EPEC in pea-sized (5 mg) stool without labor-intensive and time-consuming nucleic acid purification or target amplification using enzymes. The significance of this method is that it is rapid (<15 minutes) and simple (without nucleic acid purification or molecular amplification) and does not require instrumentation, or access to a laboratory, cold chain or electric power. Thus, it is well-suited for point-of-need use in remote and/or resource-limited settings in the developing world where the mortality due to diarrheal diseases is especially high. The rapid testing of stool pathogens in real time at the point-of-need will decrease the loss of patients to follow-up, and enable patients to be treated earlier with the appropriate therapeutics in both the developed and developing world settings.

Graphical abstract: Simple lateral flow assays for microbial detection in stool

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 jul 2018
Accepted
30 ago 2018
First published
20 set 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Anal. Methods, 2018,10, 5358-5363

Simple lateral flow assays for microbial detection in stool

W. A. Henderson, L. Xiang, N. H. Fourie, S. K. Abey, E. G. Ferguson, A. F. Diallo, N. D. Kenea and C. H. Kim, Anal. Methods, 2018, 10, 5358 DOI: 10.1039/C8AY01475B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements