Research and development of a novel subunit vaccine for the currently circulating pseudorabies virus variant in China

Abstract

Pseudorabies (PR) is a devastating viral disease which leads to fatal encephalitis and respiratory disorders in pigs. Commercial gE-deleted live pseudorabies virus (PRV) vaccine has been widely used to control this disease in China. However, the new-emerging variants of PRV compromises the protection provided by current vaccines and lead to the outbreak of PR in vaccinated pig herds. Several killed and live vaccine candidates based on current PRV variants have been reported to be effective to control the disease. A subunit vaccine based on gB protein, one major PRV glycoprotein which elicits strong humoral and cellular immune responses, however, was never evaluated for protection against the current circulating PRV variants. In this study, full-length PRV gB protein was successfully expressed in baculovirus/insect cells in the soluble format and was tested on 3-week-old piglets as a subunit vaccine. Compared with unvaccinated pigs, the gB-vaccinated pigs developed specific antibody-mediated responses and were protected from the virulent PRV HN1201 challenge. All vaccinated pigs survived without showing any PRV-specific respiratory and neurological signs, but all unvaccinated pigs died within 7 days after HN1201 challenge. Hence, this novel gB-based vaccine could be applied as an effective subunit vaccine to control PRV variant in China.

Keywords

pseudorabies virus / glycoprotein B protein / subunit vaccine

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Major Science and Technology Program in Henan Province (131100110200), Innovation Scientists and Technicians Troop Construction Projects of Henan Province (142101510001), and the Science and Technology Innovation team in Henan Province (C20130005).

Yuzhou Wang, Tongyan Wang, He Yan, Fanli Yang, Linghua Guo, Qingyuan Yang, Xule Hu, Feifei Tan, Yan Xiao, Xiangdong Li, and Kegong Tian declared that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg