ABSTRACT: Chlamydial infection, caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, is the most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection and remains a major public health problem worldwide, particularly in underdeveloped regions. Developing a rapid and sensitive point-of-care (POC) testing for accurate screening of C. trachomatis infection is critical for earlier treatment to prevent transmission. In this study, a novel diagnostic assay, loop-mediated isothermal amplification integrated with gold nanoparticle-based lateral flow biosensor (LAMP-LFB), was devised and applied for diagnosis of C. trachomatis in clinical samples. A set of LAMP primers based on the ompA gene from 14 C. trachomatis serological variants (serovar A-K, L1, L2, L3) was successfully designed and used for the development of C. trachomatis-LAMP-LFB assay. The optimal reaction system can be performed at a constant temperature of 67°C for 35 min. The total assay process, including genomic DNA extraction (~15 min), LAMP reaction (35 min), and LFB readout (~2 min), could be finished within 60 min. The C. trachomatis-LAMP-LFB could detect down to 50 copies/ml, and the specificity was 100%, no cross-reactions with other pathogens were observed. Hence, our C. trachomatis-LAMP-LFB was a rapid, reliable, sensitive, cost-effective, and easy-to-operate assay, which could offer an attractive POC testing tool for chlamydial infection screening, especially in resource starvation settings.
