Immune response to and pathogenesis of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus
type: CreativeWork
description: Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus causes effusive diarrhea in pigs of all ages and high mortality among pre-weaning pigs. The PED virus (PEDV) is one of several important swine pathogens, which causes significant economic losses to the swine industry. The first outbreak of PED in the United States occurred in 2013. Since then, various studies have been conducted to characterize the virus and its pathogenesis/pathogenicity and to develop diagnostic testing and reagents for the virus. The goals of the following three experiments in this dissertation were to characterize protective host antibody response against the PEDV, elucidate mechanisms responsible for the long duration of viral fecal shedding, and identify the putative receptor-binding domain of the virus. The first study characterized clinical and antibody response of pigs following experimental PEDV infection/re-infection. After experimental inoculation, naive 3-week-old pigs developed diarrhea starting 2 days post infection (dpi). While most of the pigs recovered by 10 dpi, the virus continued to shed in feces from all pigs until 14 dpi and in some pigs up to 35 dpi. The pigs developed virus-specific antibodies of all major isotypes as early as 7-10 dpi, and serum virus neutralizing (VN) antibody was detectable in the majority of pigs (92%) by 14 dpi, suggesting that antibody appearance, particularly VN antibody, may coincide with the progress toward recovery. While all structural proteins of PEDV except envelope protein were found to be immunogenic, the appearance of antibody against spike (S) protein seemed to be associated with the development of neutralizing activity in blood circulation. When the pigs were re-exposed to the same strain of PEDV (i.e., homologous challenge) almost 2 months after the initial infection, neither clinical signs of diarrhea and other abnormalities nor viremia were observed in the pigs. Fecal shedding of the virus, however, occurred for 14 dpi even though those pigs had dete…
abstract: Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus causes effusive diarrhea in pigs of all ages and high mortality among pre-weaning pigs. The PED virus (PEDV) is one of several important swine pathogens, which causes significant economic losses to the swine industry. The first outbreak of PED in the United States occurred in 2013. Since then, various studies have been conducted to characterize the virus and its pathogenesis/pathogenicity and to develop diagnostic testing and reagents for the virus. The goals of the following three experiments in this dissertation were to characterize protective host antibody response against the PEDV, elucidate mechanisms responsible for the long duration of viral fecal shedding, and identify the putative receptor-binding domain of the virus. The first study characterized clinical and antibody response of pigs following experimental PEDV infection/re-infection. After experimental inoculation, naive 3-week-old pigs developed diarrhea starting 2 days post infection (dpi). While most of the pigs recovered by 10 dpi, the virus continued to shed in feces from all pigs until 14 dpi and in some pigs up to 35 dpi. The pigs developed virus-specific antibodies of all major isotypes as early as 7-10 dpi, and serum virus neutralizing (VN) antibody was detectable in the majority of pigs (92%) by 14 dpi, suggesting that antibody appearance, particularly VN antibody, may coincide with the progress toward recovery. While all structural proteins of PEDV except envelope protein were found to be immunogenic, the appearance of antibody against spike (S) protein seemed to be associated with the development of neutralizing activity in blood circulation. When the pigs were re-exposed to the same strain of PEDV (i.e., homologous challenge) almost 2 months after the initial infection, neither clinical signs of diarrhea and other abnormalities nor viremia were observed in the pigs. Fecal shedding of the virus, however, occurred for 14 dpi even though those pigs had dete…
author: Bhandari, Mahesh
language: en
date published: 2019-01-01
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:37:38Z
provider: Iowa State University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Iowa State University