Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for rapid detection of L. monocytogenes in meat

There is a continued need to develop improved rapid methods for detection of foodborne pathogens. Rapid and sensitive methods for enumeration of Listeria monocytogenes are important for microbiological food safety testing purpose. The aim of this project was to evaluate a commercial loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) based system with bioluminescence, named as 3M™ Molecular Detection Assay (MDA), was validated for the detection of L. monocytogenes in food products with a standard GOST 32031-2012 method as reference. The results of this study revealed that a commercial LAMP-based method performed equally effective compared with method, showing from 94% to 100% specificity and sensitivity, respectively. The LAMP-based method was shown to be rapid and reliable detection technique for L. monocytogenes present at low numbers (10 CFU.g-1) on raw meat and meat products and can be applicable in meat industry. Thus, compared with the microbiological method based GOST 32031-2012, the LAMP assay is a relatively rapid and highly sensitive method for detecting L. monocytogenes and will facilitate the surveillance for contamination of L. monocytogenes in food. The 3M MDS result and culture-based detection (GOST 32031-2012) did not differ significantly (p >0.05) regarding the number of positive samples.