Objective Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (SS2) is an important zoonotic pathogen causing serious diseases and even deaths in pigs and humans. Public health events as well as economic losses caused by SS2 have aroused widespread concerns. Due to unavailability of vaccines, development of rapid detection methods for timely diagnosis of SS2 infection or contaminated products, and normally monitoring its prevalence in susceptible animals and population, will be helpful for prevention and control of SS2 infections.

Methods Several sets of primers and one probe for recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assay targeting cpsJ2 gene were designed and synthesized. Lateral flow (LF) test was introduced to produce visual results combined with RPA. Primers with high amplification efficiency were screened and the reaction system was optimized. Indicators of detection effectiveness were evaluated.

Results The established method had a detection limit of 100 copies/reaction in recognizing SS2 rather than other organisms. The sensitivity was 100% evaluated by infected animal samples. The detection can be completed in 20 min with requirement of a constant temperature equipment only. 

Conclusion The established rapid, visual, sensitive, and specific RPA-LF assay showed superior detection performance and is expected to be widely applied to fight SS2 infection in resource-limited areas.