A simple and rapid diagnostic method to detect new goose astrovirus using reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification

In this study, we develop a reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay for rapid and easy detection of goose astroviruses (GAstVs) in clinical samples. The specific LAMP primer sets were designed targeting the ORF2 gene of GAstV. The conditions of LAMP amplification were optimized in terms of reaction time and temperature. The optimal conditions are 60 min in a 60 °C water bath. No cross-reactivity was noted with fowl adenovirus serotype 4 (FAdV-4), duck tembusu virus (DTMUV), goose parvovirus (GPV), avian infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), or chicken anemia virus (CAV). The proposed RT-LAMP method was compared with conventional RT polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and with nested RT-PCR. The results showed that the sensitivity of the proposed method was comparable to that of nested RT-PCR and tenfold higher than that of the conventional RT-PCR. Clinical samples (N = 129) of the liver and kidney from sick geese collected from six commercial goose farms were tested. The positive rate was 39.5% (51/129), 38.8% (50/129), and 34.9% (45/129) using RT-LAMP, nested RT-PCR and conventional RT-PCR, respectively. The developed RT-LAMP diagnostic method is not only simple, rapid, and highly specific, but also portable for use on the field. It may be used in epidemiological investigation to detect GAstVs.