Multiplexed detection of infectious pathogens using on-chip loop-mediated isothermal amplification and a smartphone

New tools are needed to enable rapid detection, identification, and reporting of infectious pathogens in a wide variety of point-of-care applications that impact human and animal health. In this work, we report the design, construction, and characterization of a platform for multiplexed analysis of disease-specific DNA sequences that utilizes a smartphone camera as the sensor in conjunction with a handheld instrument that interfaces the phone with a silicon-based microfluidic chip. Utilizing specific nucleic acid sequences for four equine respiratory pathogens as representative examples, we demonstrated the ability of the system to use a single droplet of test sample to perform selective qualitative determination of target sequences with integrated experimental controls in an hour. The system achieves detection limits comparable to those obtained by laboratory-based methods and instruments