Detection of Mycobacterium kansasii using a combination of loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and lateral flow biosensors

Mycobacterium kansasii is an opportunistic pathogen that causes both intrapulmonary and extrapulmonary infections. The symptoms of the pulmonary diseases caused by M. kansasii closely resemble Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Rapid and accurate differentiation of M. kansasii from M. tuberculosis, as well as other mycobacteria, is crucial for developing effective therapeutics and disease treatment. In this study, we combined loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) with lateral flow biosensors (LFB) to detect M. kansasii, by targeting the species-specific sequence of rpoB, a gene which encodes the β subunit of bacterial RNA polymerase. The assay was validated to ensure that it was highly selective by testing M. kansasii, M. tuberculosis, other species of respiratory bacteria, and other nontuberculous mycobacteria. The detection limit of the assay was 1 fg/μL of DNA and 50 CFU of bacilli in sputum. The M. kansasii-LAMP-LFB assay is a fast, cheap, and accurate method for detecting M. kansasii by constant temperature amplification and simple interpretation. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10123-020-00143-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.