Kinetics of elementary steps in loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) show that strand invasion during initiation is rate-limiting.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) has proven to be easier to implement than PCR for point-of-care diagnostic tests. However, the underlying mechanism of LAMP is complicated and the kinetics of the major steps in LAMP have not been fully elucidated, which prevents rational improvements in assay development. Here we present our work to characterize the kinetics of the elementary steps in LAMP and show that: (i) strand invasion / initiation is the rate-limiting step in the LAMP reaction; (ii) the loop primer plays an important role in accelerating the rate of initiation and does not function solely during the exponential amplification phase and (iii) strand displacement synthesis by Bst-LF polymerase is relatively fast (125 nt/s) and processive on both linear and hairpin templates, although with some interruptions on high GC content templates. Building on these data, we were able to develop a kinetic model that relates the individual kinetic experiments to the bulk LAMP reaction. The assays developed here provide important insights into the mechanism of LAMP, and the overall model should be crucial in engineering more sensitive and faster LAMP reactions. The kinetic methods we employ should likely prove useful with other isothermal DNA amplification methods.

Improved Bst DNA Polymerase Variants Derived via a Machine Learning Approach.

The DNA polymerase I from Geobacillus stearothermophilus (also known as Bst DNAP) is widely used in isothermal amplification reactions, where its strand displacement ability is prized. More robust versions of this enzyme should be enabled for diagnostic applications, especially for carrying out higher temperature reactions that might proceed more quickly. To this end, we appended a short fusion domain from the actin-binding protein villin that improved both stability and purification of the enzyme. In parallel, we have developed a machine learning algorithm that assesses the relative fit of individual amino acids to their chemical microenvironments at any position in a protein and applied this algorithm to predict sequence substitutions in Bst DNAP. The top predicted variants had greatly improved thermotolerance (heating prior to assay), and upon combination, the mutations showed additive thermostability, with denaturation temperatures up to 2.5 °C higher than the parental enzyme. The increased thermostability of the enzyme allowed faster loop-mediated isothermal amplification assays to be carried out at 73 °C, where both Bst DNAP and its improved commercial counterpart Bst 2.0 are inactivated. Overall, this is one of the first examples of the application of machine learning approaches to the thermostabilization of an enzyme.

One-Enzyme Reverse Transcription qPCR Using Taq DNA Polymerase.

Taq DNA polymerase, one of the first thermostable DNA polymerases to be discovered, has been typecast as a DNA-dependent DNA polymerase commonly employed for PCR. However, Taq polymerase belongs to the same DNA polymerase superfamily as the Molony murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase and has in the past been shown to possess reverse transcriptase activity. We report optimized buffer and salt compositions that promote the reverse transcriptase activity of Taq DNA polymerase and thereby allow it to be used as the sole enzyme in TaqMan RT-qPCRs. We demonstrate the utility of Taq-alone RT-qPCRs by executing CDC SARS-CoV-2 N1, N2, and N3 TaqMan RT-qPCR assays that could detect as few as 2 copies/µL of input viral genomic RNA.

Phosphorothioated Primers Lead to Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification at Low Temperatures.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is an extremely powerful tool for the detection of nucleic acids with high sensitivity and specificity. However, LAMP shows optimal performance at around 65 °C, which limits applications in point-of-care-testing (POCT). Here, we have developed a version of LAMP that uses phosphorothioated primers (PS-LAMP) to enable more efficient hairpin formation and extension at the termini of growing concatamers, and that therefore works at much lower temperatures. By including additional factors such as chaotropes (urea) and single-stranded DNA binding protein (SSB), the sensitivities and selectivities for amplicon detection with PS-LAMP at 40 °C were comparable with a regular LAMP reaction at 65 °C.

Strand Displacement Probes Combined with Isothermal Nucleic Acid Amplification for Instrument-Free Detection from Complex Samples.

Sensitive and specific detection of pathogens via nucleic acid amplification is currently constrained to laboratory settings and portable equipment with costly fluorescent detectors. Nucleic acid-detecting lateral flow immunoassay strips (LFIAs) offer a low-cost visual transduction strategy at points of need. Unfortunately, these LFIAs frequently detect amplification byproducts that can yield spurious results which can only be deciphered through statistical analysis. We integrated customizable strand displacement probes into standard loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays to prevent byproduct capture on commercial LFIAs. We find that combining strand displacement with LAMP (SD-LAMP) yields LFIA test band intensities that can be unequivocally interpreted by human subjects without additional instrumentation, thereby alleviating the need for a portable reader's analysis. Using SD-LAMP, we capture target amplicons on commercially available LFIAs from as few as 3.5 Vibrio cholerae and 2 750 Escherichia coli bacteria without false positive or false negative interpretation. Moreover, we demonstrate that LFIA capture of SD-LAMP products remain specific even in the presence of complex sample matrixes, providing a significant step toward reliable instrument-free pathogen detection outside of laboratories.

Amplicon Competition Enables End-Point Quantitation of Nucleic Acids Following Isothermal Amplification.

It is inherently difficult to quantitate nucleic acid analytes with most isothermal amplification assays. We developed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) reactions in which competition between defined numbers of "false" and "true" amplicons leads to order of magnitude quantitation by a single endpoint determination. These thresholded LAMP reactions were successfully used to directly and quantitatively estimate the numbers of nucleic acids in complex biospecimens, including directly from cells and in sewage, with the values obtained closely correlating with qPCR quantitations. Thresholded LAMP reactions are amenable to endpoint readout by cell phone, unlike other methods that require continuous monitoring, and should therefore prove extremely useful in developing one-pot reactions for point-of-care diagnostics without needing sophisticated material or informatics infrastructure.

A Spinach molecular beacon triggered by strand displacement.

We have re-engineered the fluorescent RNA aptamer Spinach to be activated in a sequence-dependent manner. The original Spinach aptamer was extended at its 5'- and 3'-ends to create Spinach.ST, which is predicted to fold into an inactive conformation and thus prevent association with the small molecule fluorophore DFHBI. Hybridization of a specific trigger oligonucleotide to a designed toehold leads to toehold-initiated strand displacement and refolds Spinach into the active, fluorophore-binding conformation. Spinach.ST not only specifically detects its target oligonucleotide but can discriminate readily against single-nucleotide mismatches. RNA amplicons produced during nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) of DNA or RNA targets could be specifically detected and reported in real-time by conformational activation of Spinach.ST generated by in vitro transcription. In order to adapt any target sequence to detection by a Spinach reporter we used a primer design technique that brings together otherwise distal toehold sequences via hairpin formation. The same techniques could potentially be used to adapt common Spinach reporters to non-nucleic acid analytes, rather than by making fusions between aptamers and Spinach.

Design and application of cotranscriptional non-enzymatic RNA circuits and signal transducers.

Nucleic acid circuits are finding increasing real-life applications in diagnostics and synthetic biology. Although DNA has been the main operator in most nucleic acid circuits, transcriptionally produced RNA circuits could provide powerful alternatives for reagent production and their use in cells. Towards these goals, we have implemented a particular nucleic acid circuit, catalytic hairpin assembly, using RNA for both information storage and processing. Our results demonstrated that the design principles developed for DNA circuits could be readily translated to engineering RNA circuits that operated with similar kinetics and sensitivities of detection. Not only could purified RNA hairpins perform amplification reactions but RNA hairpins transcribed in vitro also mediated amplification, even without purification. Moreover, we could read the results of the non-enzymatic amplification reactions using a fluorescent RNA aptamer 'Spinach' that was engineered to undergo sequence-specific conformational changes. These advances were applied to the end-point and real-time detection of the isothermal strand displacement amplification reaction that produces single-stranded DNAs as part of its amplification cycle. We were also able to readily engineer gate structures with RNA similar to those that have previously formed the basis of DNA circuit computations. Taken together, these results validate an entirely new chemistry for the implementation of nucleic acid circuits.

Exquisite allele discrimination by toehold hairpin primers.

The ability to detect and monitor single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in biological samples is an enabling research and clinical tool. We have developed a surprising, inexpensive primer design method that provides exquisite discrimination between SNPs. The field of DNA computation is largely reliant on using so-called toeholds to initiate strand displacement reactions, leading to the execution of kinetically trapped circuits. We have now similarly found that the short toehold sequence to a target of interest can initiate both strand displacement within the hairpin and extension of the primer by a polymerase, both of which will further stabilize the primer:template complex. However, if the short toehold does not bind, neither of these events can readily occur and thus amplification should not occur. Toehold hairpin primers were used to detect drug resistance alleles in two genes, rpoB and katG, in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome, and ten alleles in the Escherichia coli genome. During real-time PCR, the primers discriminate between mismatched templates with Cq delays that are frequently so large that the presence or absence of mismatches is essentially a 'yes/no' answer.

Robust strand exchange reactions for the sequence-specific, real-time detection of nucleic acid amplicons.

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) of DNA is a powerful isothermal nucleic acid amplification method that can generate upward of 10(9) copies from less than 100 copies of template DNA within an hour. Unfortunately, although the amplification reactions are extremely powerful, real-time and specific detection of LAMP products remains analytically challenging. In order to both improve the specificity of LAMP detection and to make readout simpler and more reliable, we have replaced the intercalating dye typically used for monitoring in real-time fluorescence with a toehold-mediated strand exchange reaction termed one-step strand displacement (OSD). Due to the inherent sequence specificity of toehold-mediated strand exchange, the OSD reporter could successfully distinguish side products from true amplicons arising from templates corresponding to the biomedically relevant M. tuberculosis RNA polymerase (rpoB) and the melanoma-related biomarker BRAF. OSD allowed the Yes/No detection of rpoB in a complex mixture such as synthetic sputum and also demonstrated single nucleotide specificity in Yes/No detection of a mutant BRAF allele (V600E) in the presence of 20-fold more of the wild-type gene. Real-time detection of different genes in multiplex LAMP reactions also proved possible. The development of simple, readily designed, modular equivalents of TaqMan probes for isothermal amplification reactions should generally improve the applicability of these reactions and may eventually assist with the development of point-of-care tests.

G-quadruplex-generating polymerase chain reaction for visual colorimetric detection of amplicons.

We have developed a self-reporting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system for visual colorimetric gene detection and distinction of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Amplification is performed using target-specific primers modified with a 5'-end tail that is complementary to a G-quadruplex deoxyribozyme-forming sequence. At end-point, G-quadruplexes are forced to fold from PCR-generated duplex DNA and then are used to colorimetrically report the successful occurrence of PCR by assaying their peroxidase activity using a chromogenic substrate. Furthermore, primer design considerations for the G-quadruplex-generating PCR system have allowed us to visually distinguish SNPs associated with Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug resistance alleles.

Mismatches improve the performance of strand-displacement nucleic Acid circuits.

Catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) has previously proven useful as a transduction and amplification method for nucleic acid detection. However, the two hairpin substrates in a CHA circuit can potentially react non-specifically even in the absence of a single-stranded catalyst, and this non-specific background degrades the signal-to-noise ratio. The introduction of mismatched base pairs that impede uncatalyzed strand exchange reactions led to a significant decrease of the background signal, while only partially damping the signal in the presence of a catalyst. Various types and lengths of mismatches were assayed by fluorimetry, and in many instances, our MismatCHA designs yielded 100-fold increased signal-to-background ratios compared to a ratio of 4:1 with the perfectly matched substrates. These observations could be of general utility for the design of non-enzymatic nucleic acid circuits.

Real-time detection of isothermal amplification reactions with thermostable catalytic hairpin assembly.

Catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) is an enzyme-free amplification method that has previously proven useful in amplifying and transducing signals at the terminus of nucleic acid amplification reactions. Here, for the first time, we engineered CHA to be thermostable from 37 to 60 °C and in consequence have generalized its application to the real-time detection of isothermal amplification reactions. CHA circuits were designed and optimized for both high- and low-temperature rolling circle amplification (RCA) and strand displacement amplification (SDA). The resulting circuits not only increased the specificity of detection but also improved the sensitivity by as much as 25- to 10000-fold over comparable real-time detection methods. These methods have been condensed into a set of general rules for the design of thermostable CHA circuits with high signals and low noise.

Analysis of macerated ticks using Boolean logic gating colorimetric isothermal nucleic acid assays for Lyme Borrelia and Ixodes scapularis ticks.

Lyme disease, one of the most common tickborne diseases, has been rapidly spreading in parallel with the expansion of the range of its tick vector. Better tick surveillance efforts are needed to accurately estimate disease risk and to guide public health and clinical management. We have developed two multiplex loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) reactions coupled with oligonucleotide strand displacement (OSD) probes to identify the tick host, Ixodes scapularis, and the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi, they carry. In each multiplex LAMP-OSD assay the co-presence of two target sequences is computed at the DNA level by linking the two corresponding amplicons and detecting the co-product on colorimetric lateral flow dipsticks. In tests with synthetic DNA, the co-presence of as few as four copies of input DNA could be detected, without producing spurious signals. Most importantly, though, the LAMP-OSD assay is amenable to being carried out directly with macerated tick samples, without any sample preparation. In such field conditions, assays performed robustly and demonstrated 97-100% sensitivity and 100% specificity with both field-collected and lab-raised artificially infected ticks. Such easy-to-use, arthropod and pathogen-specific assays would be well suited to field and near patient use without relying on complex instrumentation or infrastructure.

Charge Engineering Improves the Performance of Bst DNA Polymerase Fusions.

The charge states of proteins can greatly influence their stabilities and interactions with substrates, and the addition of multiple charges (supercharging) has been shown to be a successful approach for engineering protein stability and function. The addition of a fast-folding fusion domain to the Bacillus stearothermophilus DNA polymerase improved its functionality in isothermal amplification assays, and further charge engineering of this domain has increased both protein stability and diagnostics performance. When combined with mutations that stabilize the core of the protein, the charge-engineered fusion domain leads to the ability to carry out loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) at temperatures up to 74° C or in the presence of high concentrations of urea, with detection times under 10 min. Adding both positive and negative charges to the fusion domain led to changes in the relative reverse transcriptase and DNA polymerase activities of the polymerase. Overall, the development of a modular fusion domain whose charged surface can be modified at will should prove to be of use in the engineering of other polymerases and, in general, may prove useful for protein stabilization.

Developing predictive hybridization models for phosphorothioate oligonucleotides using high-resolution melting.

The ability to predict nucleic acid hybridization energies has been greatly enabling for many applications, but predictive models require painstaking experimentation, which may limit expansion to non-natural nucleic acid analogues and chemistries. We have assessed the utility of dye-based, high-resolution melting (HRM) as an alternative to UV-Vis determinations of hyperchromicity in order to more quickly acquire parameters for duplex stability prediction. The HRM-derived model for phosphodiester (PO) DNA can make comparable predictions to previously established models. Using HRM, it proved possible to develop predictive models for DNA duplexes containing phosphorothioate (PS) linkages, and we found that hybridization stability could be predicted as a function of sequence and backbone composition for a variety of duplexes, including PS:PS, PS:PO, and partially modified backbones. Individual phosphorothioate modifications destabilize helices by around 0.12 kcal/mol on average. Finally, we applied these models to the design of a catalytic hairpin assembly circuit, an enzyme-free amplification method used for nucleic acid-based molecular detection. Changes in PS circuit behavior were consistent with model predictions, further supporting the addition of HRM modeling and parameters for PS oligonucleotides to the rational design of nucleic acid hybridization.

Preparation and Use of Cellular Reagents: A Low-resource Molecular Biology Reagent Platform.

Protein reagents are indispensable for most molecular and synthetic biology procedures. Most conventional protocols rely on highly purified protein reagents that require considerable expertise, time, and infrastructure to produce. In consequence, most proteins are acquired from commercial sources, reagent expense is often high, and accessibility may be hampered by shipping delays, customs barriers, geopolitical constraints, and the need for a constant cold chain. Such limitations to the widespread availability of protein reagents, in turn, limit the expansion and adoption of molecular biology methods in research, education, and technology development and application. Here, we describe protocols for producing a low-resource and locally sustainable reagent delivery system, termed "cellular reagents," in which bacteria engineered to overexpress proteins of interest are dried and can then be used directly as reagent packets in numerous molecular biology reactions, without the need for protein purification or a constant cold chain. As an example of their application, we describe the execution of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) using cellular reagents, detailing how to replace pure protein reagents with optimal amounts of rehydrated cellular reagents. We additionally describe a do-it-yourself fluorescence visualization device for using these cellular reagents in common molecular biology applications. The methods presented in this article can be used for low-cost, on-site production of commonly used molecular biology reagents (including DNA and RNA polymerases, reverse transcriptases, and ligases) with minimal instrumentation and expertise, and without the need for protein purification. Consequently, these methods should generally make molecular biology reagents more affordable and accessible. © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC. Basic Protocol 1: Preparation of cellular reagents Alternate Protocol 1: Preparation of lyophilized cellular reagents Alternate Protocol 2: Evaluation of bacterial culture growth via comparison to McFarland turbidity standards Support Protocol 1: SDS-PAGE for protein expression analysis of cellular reagents Basic Protocol 2: Using Taq DNA polymerase cellular reagents for PCR Basic Protocol 3: Using Br512 DNA polymerase cellular reagents for loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) Support Protocol 2: Building a fluorescence visualization device.

Minimizing Leakage in Stacked Strand Exchange Amplification Circuits.

Signal amplification is ubiquitous in biology and engineering. Protein enzymes, such as DNA polymerases, can routinely achieve >106-fold signal increase, making them powerful tools for signal enhancement. Considerable signal amplification can also be achieved using nonenzymatic, cascaded nucleic acid strand exchange reactions. However, the practical application of such kinetically trapped circuits has so far proven difficult due to uncatalyzed leakage of the cascade. We now demonstrate that strategically positioned mismatches between circuit components can reduce unprogrammed hybridization reactions and therefore greatly diminish leakage. In consequence, we were able to synthesize a three-layer catalytic hairpin assembly cascade that could operate in a single tube and that yielded 3.7 × 104-fold signal amplification in only 4 h, a greatly improved performance relative to previous cascades. This advance should facilitate the implementation of nonenzymatic signal amplification in molecular diagnostics, as well as inform the design of a wide variety of increasingly intricate nucleic acid computation circuits.

High-Surety Isothermal Amplification and Detection of SARS-CoV-2.

Isothermal nucleic acid amplification tests (iNATs), such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), are good alternatives to PCR-based amplification assays, especially for point-of-care and low-resource use, in part because they can be carried out with relatively simple instrumentation. However, iNATs can often generate spurious amplicons, especially in the absence of target sequences, resulting in false-positive results. This is especially true if signals are based on non-sequence-specific probes, such as intercalating dyes or pH changes. In addition, pathogens often prove to be moving, evolving targets and can accumulate mutations that will lead to inefficient primer binding and thus false-negative results. Multiplex assays targeting different regions of the analyte and logical signal readout using sequence-specific probes can help to reduce both false negatives and false positives. Here, we describe rapid conversion of three previously described SARS-CoV-2 LAMP assays that relied on a non-sequence-specific readout into individual and multiplex one-pot assays that can be visually read using sequence-specific oligonucleotide strand exchange (OSD) probes. We describe both fluorescence-based and Boolean logic-gated colorimetric lateral flow readout methods and demonstrate detection of SARS-CoV-2 virions in crude human saliva.IMPORTANCE One of the key approaches to treatment and control of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, is accurate and rapid diagnostics that is widely deployable in a timely and scalable manner. To achieve this, it is essential to go beyond the traditional gold standard of quantitative PCR (qPCR) that is often faced with difficulties in scaling due to the complexity of infrastructure and human resource requirements. Isothermal nucleic acid amplification methods, such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), have been long pursued as ideal, low-tech alternatives for rapid, portable testing. However, isothermal approaches often suffer from false signals due to employment of nonspecific readout methods. We describe general principles for rapidly converting nonspecifically read LAMP assays into assays that are read in a sequence-specific manner by using oligonucleotide strand displacement (OSD) probes. We also demonstrate that inclusion of OSD probes in LAMP assays maintains the simplicity of one-pot assays and a visual yes/no readout by using fluorescence or colorimetric lateral-flow dipsticks while providing accurate sequence-specific readout and the ability to logically query multiplex amplicons for redundancy or copresence. These principles not only yielded high-surety isothermal assays for SARS-CoV-2 but might also aid in the design of more sophisticated molecular assays for other analytes.

Producing molecular biology reagents without purification.

We recently developed 'cellular' reagents-lyophilized bacteria overexpressing proteins of interest-that can replace commercial pure enzymes in typical diagnostic and molecular biology reactions. To make cellular reagent technology widely accessible and amenable to local production with minimal instrumentation, we now report a significantly simplified method for preparing cellular reagents that requires only a common bacterial incubator to grow and subsequently dry enzyme-expressing bacteria at 37°C with the aid of inexpensive chemical desiccants. We demonstrate application of such dried cellular reagents in common molecular and synthetic biology processes, such as PCR, qPCR, reverse transcription, isothermal amplification, and Golden Gate DNA assembly, in building easy-to-use testing kits, and in rapid reagent production for meeting extraordinary diagnostic demands such as those being faced in the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Furthermore, we demonstrate feasibility of local production by successfully implementing this minimized procedure and preparing cellular reagents in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Cameroon, and Ghana. Our results demonstrate possibilities for readily scalable local and distributed reagent production, and further instantiate the opportunities available via synthetic biology in general.