Development and validation of the isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification assays for rapid detection of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae
Abstract Background Mycoplasmal pneumonia is an important infectious disease that threatens sheep and goat production worldwide, and Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is one of major etiological agent causing mycoplasmal pneumonia. It is an urgent need to develop a rapid and accurate method to detect M. ovipneumoniae . Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) is an isothermal nucleic acid amplification technique, and RPA-based diagnostic assays have been described for the detection of different types of pathogens. Results The RPA assays using real-time fluorescence detection (real-time RPA) and lateral flow strip detection (LFS RPA) were developed to detect M. ovipneumoniae targeting a conserved region of the 16SrRNA gene. Real-time RPA was performed in a portable florescence scanner at 39 °C for 20 min. LFS RPA was performed in a portable metal bath incubator at 39 °C for 15 min, and the amplicons were visualized with the naked eyes within 5 min on the lateral flow strip. Both assays were highly specific for M. ovipneumoniae , as there were no cross-reactions with other pathogens tested, especially the M. capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae . The limit of detection of LFS RPA assay was 1.0×10 1 copies per reaction using a recombinant plasmid containing target gene as template, which is 10 times higher than the limit of detection of the real-time RPA and real-time PCR assays. The RPA assays were further validated on 46 clinical sheep nasal swab and fresh lung samples, and M. ovipneumoniae DNA was detected in 17 samples in the RPA assays and 19 samples in the real-time PCR assay. The real-time RPA and LFS RPA showed diagnostic specificity of 100%, diagnostic sensitivity of 89.47%, and a kappa coefficient of 0.909. Conclusions The developed real-time RPA and LFS RPA assays provide the attractive and promising tools for rapid, convenient and reliable detection of M. ovipneumoniae , especially in resource-limited settings.