Abstract: Disclosed herein are methods and compositions (e.g., oligonucleotide primers) for isothermal amplification and detection of M. pneumoniae nucleic acids in a sample. In some embodiments, the methods include contacting a sample with a set of LAMP primers specific for a M. pneumoniae CARDS toxin-encoding nucleic acid under conditions sufficient to produce an M. pneumoniae nucleic acid amplification product and detecting the resulting M. pneumoniae amplification product. Kits including sets of LAMP primers for detection of M. pneumoniae CARDS toxin nucleic acids are also provided herein.