Developing a multiplex loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay (LAMP) to determine severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) and scrub typhus

Woong Sik Jang, Da Hye Lim, Young Lan Choe, Jeonghun Nam, Kyung Chul Moon, Chaewon Kim, Minkyeong Choi, Insu Park, Dae Won Park, Chae Seung Lim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) and scrub typhus are endemic zoonotic diseases that pose significant public health threats in East Asia. As these two diseases share common clinical features, as well as overlapping disease regions, it is difficult to differentiate between SFTS and scrub typhus. A multiplex reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay was developed to detect large segments and GroES genes for SFTS virus (SFTSV) and Orientia tsutsugamushi (OT). The performance of the RT-LAMP assay was compared and evaluated with those of commercial PowerChek™ SFTSV real-time PCR and LiliF™ TSUTSU nested PCR for 23 SFTS and 12 scrub typhus clinical samples, respectively. The multiplex SFTSV/OT/Internal control (IC) RT-LAMP assay showed comparable sensitivity (91.3%) with that of commercial PowerChek™ SFTSV Real-time PCR (95.6%) and higher sensitivity (91.6%) than that of LiliF™ TSUTSU nested PCR (75%). In addition, the multiplex SFTSV/OT RT-LAMP assay showed 100% specificity and no cross-reactivity for blood from uninfected healthy patients and samples from patients infected with other fever viruses. Thus, the multiplex SFTSV/OT/IC RT-LAMP assay could serve as a useful point-of-care molecular diagnostic test for SFTS and scrub typhus.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0262302
JournalPloS one
Volume17
Issue number2 February
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Feb
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by a government-wide R&D fund project for infectious disease research (HG18C0012), National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016R1A5A1010148), and a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HR20C0021 and HI20C0262030021).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Jang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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