Abstract: In recent years, the protection and improvement of the rural ecological environment in China have received great attention. The harmless treatment and utilization of toilet faeces is one of the focuses of rural residential environment improvement. Pathogenic microorganisms in toilet faeces can infect human by polluting food or water, which brings great threat to public health and ecological environment. Therefore, research on rapid detection methods for pathogenic microorganisms in faeces is needed. This article reviews the recent research progress of fast detection methods for pathogenic microorganisms in faeces, which covers three emerging detection methods including nucleic acid detection method, immunological detection method and biosensor detection method. Nucleic acid-based detection methods amplify the target sequence, which can detect the specific genes of target pathogen with high detection accuracy. Immunological-based detection methods use antigen-antibody hybridization to develop detection kits that can quickly detect targets. Biosensor-based detection methods rely on optical and electrochemical analytical principles. It has simple sample preparation procedure, and the detection system can be miniaturized, modularized, and is integrable. This article compares the detection limit and detection time of these methods, and discusses their advantages, limitations, and practical application potentials.

Key words: faeces, pathogenic microorganism, rapid detection methods, nucleic acid analysis, immunology, biosensing