Rapid and reliable detection methods for food borne pathogen are the key points for food safety control.However,traditional culture based procedure for bacterial identification,generally taking 5 to 7 days and requiring skilled person and non portable equipment,is incompetent for point of care or on site detection.Thus,several isothermal amplification methods characterized by rapidness and thermal cycle independent were developed to fulfill some specific needs for point of care or on site detection.In this review,mechanisms for isothermal amplification methods,designated as loop mediated isothermal amplification,rolling circle amplification,strand displacement amplification,nicking enzyme signal amplification,exonuclease Ⅲ assisted amplification,were explained and compared in detail.Besides,some drawbacks shared by these methods were highlighted,and ways to overcoming those drawbacks such as adoption of propidium monoazide,novol fluorescent dye,high throughput pretreatment equipment and microfluidic chip were provided based on the recent publications of the authors group and others.