Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) as a Rapid Molecular Tool for Salmonella Detection in Food

Rapid and reliable detection of Salmonella spp. remains a critical component of food safety monitoring. While conventional culture-based methods provide high specificity, their long turnaround times limit their usefulness for timely decision-making. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) has emerged as a powerful alternative, offering rapid nucleic acid amplification under isothermal conditions and enabling sensitive detection without the need for sophisticated equipment. These characteristics make LAMP particularly suitable for routine laboratories, field applications, and point-of-care testing. In this chapter, we describe a LAMP-based method for the detection of Salmonella spp. that is compatible with the principles of ISO 6579-1:2017. The workflow integrates a short nonselective enrichment with a highly specific LAMP assay targeting the invA gene, supported by an internal amplification control to ensure result validity. This approach provides a fast, robust, and user-friendly alternative to traditional microbiological methods, reducing the time required to determine Salmonella contamination while maintaining analytical reliability across diverse food matrices.