Detecting Closer to Care: Combining Phage and LAMP to Detect Tuberculosis, Bovine TB and Johne’s Disease

Mycobacterial diseases impact millions in the human and veterinary fields each year. Their diagnosis is long and laborious, often only sensitive in the late stages of disease. This has created an unmet need for new diagnostics that are effective in the earlier stages of infection and are quick and easy to perform. This study details the optimization of LAMP assays for the detection of M. tuberculosis, M. bovis and M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis combined with phage-mediated lysis to meet the needs of a novel diagnostic—termed phage-LAMP. The optimized phage-LAMP assay had a limit of detection of less than 10 mycobacteria per ml and no cross-reaction was seen between assays. The phage-LAMP method was then tested on a small number of clinical blood samples from suspected TB patients and herds suspected of Johne’s disease. The phage-LAMP assay could detect viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis in these samples.