Question

what are the merits and demerits of isothermal amplification method as used in parasitology as a diagnostic test?

Answer 1

ISOTHERMAL AMPLIFICATION.

Isothermal amplification is a technique that is used for the detection of nucleic acid target sequence, also it is not limited by any constraints such as thermal cycling. Commonly used isothermal amplification technique in parasitology is loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP).

LAMP: it is a powerful nucleic acid amplification method, detects the DNA at very low level.

Merits:

• Highly sensitive
• High specificity
• Can be performed at isothermal temperature in the range of 60-65C​​​​ ​
• DNA amplification under isothermal condition
• Highly compatible for point of care (POC) diagnostic test.
• It is more tolerent than PCR for some bio inhibitors
• Amplification and detection of genes are completed in a single step.

Demerits:

• It is not useful for cloning purposes
• Proper designing for primer imposes some constraints
• Larger number of primers per target in LAMP increases primer -primer interaction.