Screen-Printed Polyaniline-Based Electrodes for the Real-Time Monitoring of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Reactions

Nucleic acid amplification testing is a very powerful method to perform efficient and early diagnostics. However, the integration of a DNA amplification reaction with its associated detection in a low-cost, portable, and autonomous device remains challenging. Addressing this challenge, the use of screen-printed electrochemical sensor is reported. To achieve the detection of the DNA amplification reaction, a real-time monitoring of the hydronium ions concentration, a byproduct of this reaction, is performed. Such measurements are done by potentiometry using polyaniline (PAni)-based working electrodes and silver/silver chloride reference electrodes. The developed potentiometric sensor is shown to enable the real-time monitoring of a loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) reaction with an initial number of DNA strands as low as 10 copies. In addition, the performance of this PAni-based sensor is compared to fluorescence measurements, and it is shown that similar results are obtained for both methods.