Novel strategies to enhance lateral flow immunoassay sensitivity for detecting foodborne pathogens

Food contaminated by foodborne pathogens causes diseases, affects individuals, and even kills those affected individuals. As such, rapid and sensitive detection methods should be developed to screen pathogens in food. One current detection method is lateral flow immunoassay, an efficient technique because of several advantages, including rapidity, simplicity, stability, portability, and sensitivity. This review presents the format and principle of lateral flow immunoassay strip and the development of conventional lateral flow immunoassay for detecting foodborne pathogens. Furthermore, novel strategies that can be applied to enhance the sensitivity of lateral flow immunoassay to detect foodborne pathogens are presented; these strategies include innovating new label application, designing new formats of lateral flow immunoassay, combining with other methods, and developing signal amplification systems. With these advancements, detection sensitivity and detection time can be greatly improved.