Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technology and its use in pathogen detection.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification(LAMP) is a powerful and innovative method of nucleic acid amplification.It is characterized by employing a set of four specially designed primers spanning six distinct sequences of a target gene.By incubating all the reagents in a single tube with a DNA polymerase with strand displacement activity,amplification can be completed in less than 1 h with DNA being amplified 109-1010-fold under isothermal conditions.This method of detection should prove helpful in basic research in medicine and pharmacology,environmental hygiene,point-of-care testing,and other areas.