Using Saliva and LAMP for Non-invasive Detection of Communicable Pathogens in Low Medical Access Regions

Diagnosis of pathogens using invasive sample collection (blood, nasopharyngeal) and expensive equipment is slow to implement in a pandemic setting. Saliva is an under-utilized matrix that has a lot of potential to be utilized for diagnosing communicable diseases. This is a suitable matrix in places with low medical access or where the infrastructure is lacking due to an outbreak. With a noninvasive matrix it allows for faster sampling and reduces the amount of exposure of the disease to others including medical professionals. New molecular biology techniques can allow the capture and amplification of small amounts of viral DNA/RNA, bacterial DNA, or parasitic DNA. Several different techniques and tools could be used to amplify and diagnose viz. Polymerase Chain Reaction, Isothermal Loop-Mediated Amplification (LAMP). Recently, CRISPR-Cas, optimized Sanger sequencing and Next Generation Sequencing have been developed but it is not useful for routine diagnosis. For low access regions or where diagnostic testing infrastructure is lacking LAMP is clearly optimal due to its limited need for equipment and reagents. Collection of saliva is the best biofluid for low medical access regions. In this review we show that LAMP can be utilized to diagnose several diseases from a simple saliva sample in different regions of the world with low medical access. In this review we will look at specific pathogens and suggest using LAMP to diagnose from genomic material found in saliva.