Recombinase polymerase amplification: a promising point-of-care detection method for enteric viruses

Abstract

Viral enteric disease imposes a considerable public health and economic burden globally in both humans and livestock. Because enteric viruses are highly transmissible and resistant to numerous control strategies, making early in-field or point-of-care detection is important. There are problems with ligand-based detection strategies (e.g., sensitivity, false positive/negatives) for virus detection. Traditional amplification-based strategies are sensitive, but not as portable or rapid. Recombinase polymerase amplification is a new isothermal technique that utilizes bacterial genome repair enzymes to rapidly amplify target sequences. This report reviews the use of recombinase polymerase amplification for virus detection, showing that the method has favorable fundamental properties supporting its promise for rapid point-of-care detection of enteric viruses.