Along with progress in globalization of society, the spread of infectious diseases has accelerated worldwide. The deployment of highly sensitive genetic tests is essential for early diagnosis and early containment of potential outbreaks and epidemics, as well as routine surveillance, although tedious and expensive nucleic acid extraction steps represent a major drawback. Here we developed a simple and rapid DNA extraction method, named as an EZ-Fast kit, applicable to the field setting. The kit does not require advanced laboratory equipment or expensive DNA extraction kits and achieves crude DNA extraction within 10 min at extremely low cost and can easily be performed in field settings. When combined with real-time PCR and LAMP analyses, the performance of the POCT, using 183 bovine blood samples, was similar to that of the existing DNA extraction method: 92·5% (135/146) (real-time PCR) and 93·7% (133/142) (LAMP) diagnostic sensitivities, and 100% diagnostic specificities. The developed POCT provides a powerful tool to facilitate on-site diagnosis in a field setting.
Keywords: EZ-Fast; LAMP; POCT; field setting; point-of-care test; real-time PCR.
© 2020 The Society for Applied Microbiology.