Evaluation of the Efficacy of a Recombinant Adenovirus Expressing the Spike Protein of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus in Pigs

Abstract EN

In recent years, many studies have shown that recombinant adenovirus live vector-based vaccines are a promising novel vaccine candidate against virus infection.

Therefore, in this study, a new type of recombinant adenovirus expressing the spike (S) protein of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), rAd-PEDV-S, was generated, and its characteristics were determined.

Then, its efficacy as a vaccine candidate was evaluated in 4-week-old pigs.

The results showed that the S protein could be well expressed at a high level in rAd-PEDV-S-infected cells and that the viral titers could reach 1011 PFU/mL.

Further animal experimental results showed that rAd-PEDV-S elicited a significant PEDV-specific humoral immune response after vaccination (P<0.05).

In addition, rAd-PEDV-S provided partial protection for pigs against the highly virulent PEDV challenge.

The results presented in this study indicate that the adenovirus vector can be used as a vaccine delivery vector for the development of a PEDV vaccine and is a promising novel vaccine candidate for future prevention and control of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), but its efficacy still needs to be improved in the future.