CENTRIFUGAL LABTUBE FOR FULLY AUTOMATED DNA EXTRACTION & LAMP AMPLIFICATION BASED ON AN INTEGRATED, LOW-COST HEATING SYSTEM

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a disposable battery-driven heating system for loop-mediated isothermal DNA amplification (LAMP) inside a centrifugally-driven DNA-extraction platform (LabTube). We demonstrate fully automated, fully closed extraction of as little as 100 DNA copies of verotoxin-producing (VTEC) Escherichia coli lysate in water, milk and apple juice in a standard laboratory centrifuge, followed by subsequent automatic LAMP amplification with an overall time-to-result of 1.5hrs. The system is disposable, fully closed and automated, requiring only a single pipetting step. The microcontroller-driven heating system is low-cost (<1$) and it can be easily parallelized. Because the heated LabSystem runs within a standard laboratory centrifuge, it is suitable for DNA extraction and amplification in low-resource areas, at production sites or sales locations.