Nucleic acid amplification tests are the
gold standard for many infectious disease
diagnoses due to high sensitivity and specificity, rapid operation, and low limits of detection. Despite the advantages of nucleic acid amplification tests, they currently offer limited point-of-care
(POC) utility due to the need for complex instruments and laborious sample preparation. We report the development of the Nucleic Acid Isotachophoresis LAMP (NAIL)
diagnostic device. NAIL uses isotachophoresis (ITP)
and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) to
extract and amplify nucleic acids from complex matrices
in less than one hour inside of an integrated chip. ITP is an
electrokinetic separation technique that uses an electric
field and two buffers to extract and purify nucleic acids in a single step. LAMP amplifies nucleic
acids at constant temperature and produces large
amounts of DNA that can be easily detected. The NAIL device potentially offers significant reductions in the complexity and cost of traditional nucleic acid diagnostics for POC applications.
