Abstract

Meat adulteration, particularly the substitution of high-value meat with lower-cost species such as chicken, poses significant threats to food safety. Although DNA-based methods are widely regarded as the gold standard for species authentication, their dependence on multi-step, time-intensive laboratory protocols for nucleic acid extraction and purification severely limits their applicability in rapid, field-deployable testing scenarios. To address this limitation, we developed a swab-based sampling protocol coupled with a dedicated HPV10 nucleic acid releaser. Following systematic optimization, this approach enables efficient DNA release from swab samples within a brief lysis step while minimizing subsequent amplification inhibition. Consequently, the total sample preparation time is reduced from approximately 2 h to only 4 min, representing a 30-fold improvement in processing efficiency. This simplified sampling strategy was further integrated with loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and naked-eye colorimetric detection, resulting in a fully integrated “swab-to-result” platform. The platform enables specific detection of chicken DNA within 40 min, achieves a quantitative limit of detection of 1% (w/w) in adulterated meat matrices, and maintains a per-test cost below $1. Validation using commercially available meat products confirmed consistent and reliable detection performance at this threshold. Collectively, this study presents a robust, user-friendly, and field-deployable tool for real-time screening of meat adulteration, thereby strengthening regulatory surveillance and improving traceability throughout the supply chain.