Development and evaluation of a loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay for the rapid detection of Staphylococcus aureus in food

A loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for the rapid detection of Staphylococcus aureus in food was developed and evaluated. Heat-stable nuclease (nuc) gene was the target sequence amplified by LAMP. LAMP includes primer design, amplification at 64 °C, macroscopic observation, and estimation of the results. The LAMP detection of S. aureus was sensitive up to 1.25 CFU per reaction tube, with a detection limit of 10.3 CFU per reaction tube in the artificial contamination test, and the experiment took less than 1 h. Sensitivity of the method in Staphylococcus aureus detection was 100%, with 97.93% specificity and a 98.5% match ratio when compared using Chinese National Standard. The LAMP method is superior to the Chinese National Standard method in terms of sensitivity, cost, testing time, and convenience.