Loop-mediated isothermal amplification for the detection of plant pathogens

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is a technique involving the use of four to six primers (two inner primers, two outer primers, and two loop primers) and the strand displacement activity of Bacillus subtilis-derived (Bst) DNA polymerase. The end result of strand displacement and loop formation and synthesis is the single-temperature amplification of a highly specific fragment from a DNA template at a much greater titre than that obtained with polymerase chain reaction. With LAMP, there are several methods to determine a positive reaction. Presented here are three alternative methods: gel electrophoresis, hydroxynaphthol blue colorimetric dye, and the fluorescent intercalating PicoGreen(®) reagent.