1. Pathogenic and metagenomic evaluations reveal the correlations of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, porcine kobuvirus and porcine astroviruses with neonatal piglet diarrhea
- Author
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Ming Qiu, Shubin Li, Yanzhao Xiao, Jixiang Li, Youwen Zhang, Xinshuai Li, Binghui Feng, Chen Li, Hong Lin, Jianzhong Zhu, and Nanhua Chen
- Subjects
Diarrhea ,Swine Diseases ,Kobuvirus ,Infectious Diseases ,Swine ,Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus ,Animals ,Metagenomics ,Coronavirus Infections ,Microbiology ,Mamastrovirus - Abstract
Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) frequently causes diarrhea outbreaks. However, whether newly discovered enteric viruses such as porcine kobuvirus (PKV) and porcine astroviruses (PAstVs) are also correlated with diarrhea is still unclear. Diarrhea outbreaks were reported in a PEDV-vaccinated pig farm in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China from 2019 to 2020. PEDV was a common pathogen detected in fecal samples by routine RT-PCR assays. The PEDV positive fecal sample was used for pathogenic analysis due to the failure isolation of PEDV. The challenged neonatal piglets appeared watery diarrhea within one day post infection (dpi) and all died within 6 dpi. Histopathological and immunohistochemical examinations supported that PEDV is a major pathogen causing intestinal lesions. To further explore enteric viruses associated with neonatal piglet diarrhea, metagenomics sequencing was performed for the diarrheic piglets. Remarkably, PKV was the most abundant virus (58.33%) followed by PEDV (34.45%) and PAstVs (7.22%), which were also confirmed by real-time RT-PCR assays. Significant in vivo replications of PEDV and PKV could only be observed in challenged piglets whilst PAstVs maintained similar virus loads in both challenged and mock infected piglets. Overall, this study provides first pathogenic and metagenomic evidence that significant proliferations of PEDV and PKV are closely associated with severe diarrhea in neonatal piglets, while PAstVs likely play limited roles in neonatal piglet diarrhea.
- Published
- 2022