A Highly Pathogenic Strain of Porcine Deltacoronavirus Caused Watery Diarrhea in Newborn Piglets

Porcine deltacoronavirus(PDCoV) is a newly identified virus that causes watery diarrhea in newborn piglets and results in significant economic losses to the pig industry. Since first reported in Hong Kong in 2012, PDCoV has been subsequently detected in USA, South Korea, Thailand, and China's Mainland. Here we isolated a strain of PDCoV, named CHN-GD-2016,from the intestinal content of a diseased newborn piglet with severe diarrhea in a pig farm in Guangdong, China. PDCoV CHN-GD-2016 could be identified by immunofluorescence with PDCoV specific rabbit antisera, and typical crown-shaped particles with spiky surface projections of this PDCoV were observed with electron microscopy. Genomic analysis showed that the PDCoV CHN-GD-2016 was closely related to other Chinese PDCoV strains, with the highest sequence similarity with the strain CHN/Tianjin/2016. Importantly, inoculation of newborn piglets with 1×10~5 TCID_(50) of CHN-GD-2016 by oral feeding successfully reproduced clear clinical symptoms, including vomiting, dehydration, and severe diarrhea in piglets. In addition, the virus RNA in rectal swabs from 1 to 7 days post inoculation was detected, macroscopic and microscopic lesions in small intestine were observed, and viral antigen was also detected in the small intestines with immunohistochemical staining. Collectively, the data show in this study confirms that PDCoV is present in Guangdong,China and is highly pathogenic in newborn piglets.

Genome-wide transcriptome analysis of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus virulent or avirulent strain-infected porcine small intestinal epithelial cells

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus(PEDV)is the main cause of diarrhea,vomiting,and mortality in pigs,which results in devastating economic loss to the pig industry around the globe.In recent years,the advent of RNAsequencing technologies has led to delineate host responses at late stages of PEDV infection;however,the comparative analysis of host responses to early-stage infection of virulent and avirulent PEDV strains is currently unknown.Here,using the BGI DNBSEQ RNA-sequencing,we performed global gene expression profiles of pig intestinal epithelial cells infected with virulent(GDS01)or avirulent(HX)PEDV strains for 3,6,and 12 h.It was observed that over half of all significantly dysregulated genes in both infection groups exhibited a down-regulated expression pattern.Functional enrichment analyses indicated that the differentially expressed genes(DEGs)in the GDS01 group were predominantly related to autophagy and apoptosis,whereas the genes showing the differential expression in the HX group were strongly enriched in immune responses/inflammation.Among the DEGs,the functional association of TLR3 and IFIT2 genes with the HX and GDS01 strains replication was experimentally validated by TLR3 inhibition and IFIT2 overexpression systems in cultured cells.TLR3 expression was found to inhibit HX strain,but not GDS01 strain,replication by enhancing the IFIT2 expression in infected cells.In conclusion,our study highlights similarities and differences in gene expression patterns and cellular processes/pathways altered at the early-stage infection of PEDV virulent and avirulent strains.These findings may provide a foundation for establishing novel therapies to control PEDV infection.