Development of an accurate lateral flow immunoassay for PEDV detection in swine fecal samples with a filter pad design

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), as the main causative pathogen of viral diarrhea in pigs, has been reported to result in high morbidity and mortality in neonatal piglets and cause significant economic losses to the swine industry. Rapid diagnosis methods are essential for preventing outbreaks and transmission of this disease. In this study, a paper-based lateral flow immunoassay for the rapid diagnosis of PEDV in swine fecal samples was developed using stable color-rich latex beads as the label. Under optimal conditions, the newly developed latex bead-based lateral flow immunoassay (LBs-LFIA) attained a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 10(3.60) TCID(50)/mL and no cross-reactivity with other related swine viruses. To solve swine feces impurity interference, by adding a filtration unit design of LFIA without an additional pretreatment procedure, the LBs-LFIA gave good agreement (92.59%) with RT-PCR results in the analysis of clinical swine fecal samples (n = 108), which was more accurate than previously reported colloidal gold LFIA (74.07%) and fluorescent LFIA (86.67%). Moreover, LBs-LFIA showed sufficient accuracy (coefficient of variance [CV] < 15%) and stable (room temperature storage life > 56 days) performance for PEDV detection, which is promising for on-site analysis and user-driven testing in pig production system. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s44149-021-00029-1.