Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification for Laboratory Confirmation of Buruli Ulcer Disease-Towards a Point-of-Care Test.

Background: As the major burden of Buruli ulcer disease (BUD) occurs in remote rural areas, development of point-of-care (POC) tests is considered a research priority to bring diagnostic services closer to the patients. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), a simple, robust and cost-effective technology, has been selected as a promising POC test candidate. Three BUD-specific LAMP assays are available to date, but various technical challenges still hamper decentralized application.

Comparison of two assays for molecular determination of rifampin resistance in clinical samples from patients with Buruli ulcer disease.

This study evaluates a novel assay for detecting rifampin resistance in clinical Mycobacterium ulcerans isolates. Although highly susceptible for PCR inhibitors in 50% of the samples tested, the assay was 100% M. ulcerans specific and yielded >98% analyzable sequences with a lower limit of detection of 100 to 200 copies of the target sequence.