The highly virulent porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) emerged in China in 2010. It infects pigs of all ages, and causes severe diarrhea and high mortality rates in newborn pigs, leading to ...devastating economic losses in the pork industry worldwide. Effective and safe vaccines against highly virulent PEDV strains are still unavailable, hampering the further prevention, control and eradication of the disease in herds. Vaccination of pregnant sows with live attenuated vaccines (LAVs) is the most effective strategy to induce lactogenic immunity in the sows, which provides A passive protection of suckling piglets against PEDV via the colostrum (beestings, or first milk) and milk. Several LAV candidates have been developed via serially passaging the highly virulent PEDV isolates in non-porcine Vero cells. However, their efficacies in the induction of sufficient protection against virulent PEDV challenge vary in vivo. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of the virulence-related mutations of PEDV and their potential roles in PEDV attenuation in vivo. With the successful development of reverse genetics systems for PEDV, we also discuss how to use them to generate promising LAV candidates that are safe, effective and genetically stable. This article provides timely insight into the rational design of effective and safe PEDV LAV candidates.
Temperature is an essential factor that counts for living systems where complicated vital activities are usually temperature dependent. In vivo temperature mapping based on non-contact optical ...approach will be beneficial for revealing the physiological phenomena behind with minimized influence to the organism. Herein, a highly thermal-sensitive upconversion system based on triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) mechanism is pioneered to indicate body temperature variation sensitively over the physiological temperature range. The temperature-insensitive NaYF
: Nd nanophosphors with NIR emission was incorporated into the temperature-responsive TTA-upconversion system to serve as an internal calibration unit. Consequently, a ratiometric thermometer capable of accurately monitoring the temperature changes in vivo was developed with high thermal sensitivity (~7.1% K
) and resolution (~0.1 K).
•Evolution of global PEDV strains.•Cross-reactivity between PEDV and other coronaviruses and antigenic variations among different PEDV strains.•Pathologic features of different PEDV ...strains.•Considerations for vaccine strain selection: PEDV virulence attenuation and in vivo cross-protection among PEDV variants.
Emerging and re-emerging coronaviruses cause morbidity and mortality in human and animal populations, resulting in serious public and animal health threats and economic losses. The ongoing outbreak of a highly contagious and deadly porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in Asia, the Americas and Europe is one example. Genomic sequence analyses of PEDV variants have revealed important insights into the evolution of PEDV. However, the antigenic variations among different PEDV strains are less explored, although they may contribute to the failure of PEDV vaccines in Asian countries. In addition, the evolution of PEDV results in variants with distinct genetic features and virulence differences; thus PEDV can serve as a model to explore the molecular mechanisms of coronavirus evolution and pathogenesis. In this article, we review the evolution, antigenic relationships and pathologic features of PEDV strains. This information and review of researches will aid in the development of strategies for control and prevention of PED.
Sapoviruses cause acute gastroenteritis in humans and animals. They belong to the genus Sapovirus within the family Caliciviridae. They infect and cause disease in humans of all ages, in both ...sporadic cases and outbreaks. The clinical symptoms of sapovirus gastroenteritis are indistinguishable from those caused by noroviruses, so laboratory diagnosis is essential to identify the pathogen. Sapoviruses are highly diverse genetically and antigenically. Currently, reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assays are widely used for sapovirus detection from clinical specimens due to their high sensitivity and broad reactivity as well as the lack of sensitive assays for antigen detection or cell culture systems for the detection of infectious viruses. Sapoviruses were first discovered in 1976 by electron microscopy in diarrheic samples of humans. To date, sapoviruses have also been detected from several animals: pigs, mink, dogs, sea lions, and bats. In this review, we focus on genomic and antigenic features, molecular typing/classification, detection methods, and clinical and epidemiological profiles of human sapoviruses.
Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), causing up to 100% mortality in neonatal pigs, is a highly contagious enteric disease caused by PED virus (PEDV). The highly virulent genogroup 2 (G2) PEDV emerged in ...2010 and has caused huge economic losses to the pork industry globally. It was first reported in the US in 2013, caused country-wide outbreaks, and posed tremendous hardship for many pork producers in 2013–2014. Vaccination of pregnant sows/gilts with live attenuated vaccines (LAVs) is the most effective strategy to induce lactogenic immunity in the sows/gilts and provide a passive protection via the colostrum and milk to suckling piglets against PED. However, there are still no safe and effective vaccines available after about one decade of endeavor. One of the biggest concerns is the potential reversion to virulence of an LAV in the field. In this review, we summarize the status and the major obstacles in PEDV LAV development. We also discuss the function of the transcriptional regulatory sequences in PEDV transcription, contributing to recombination, and possible strategies to prevent the reversion of LAVs. This article provides insights into the rational design of a promising LAV without safety issues.
Noroviruses are genetically diverse RNA viruses associated with acute gastroenteritis in mammalian hosts. Phylogenetically, they can be segregated into different genogroups as well as P ...(polymerase)-groups and further into genotypes and P-types based on amino acid diversity of the complete VP1 gene and nucleotide diversity of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) region of ORF1, respectively. In recent years, several new noroviruses have been reported that warrant an update of the existing classification scheme. Using previously described 2× standard deviation (sd) criteria to group sequences into separate clusters, we expanded the number of genogroups to 10 (GI-GX) and the number of genotypes to 48 (9 GI, 27 GII, 3 GIII, 2 GIV, 2 GV, 2 GVI and 1 genotype each for GVII, GVIII, GIX formerly GII.15 and GX). Viruses for which currently only one sequence is available in public databases were classified into tentative new genogroups (GNA1 and GNA2) and genotypes (GII.NA1, GII.NA2 and GIV.NA1) with their definitive assignment awaiting additional related sequences. Based on nucleotide diversity in the RdRp region, noroviruses can be divided into 60 P-types (14 GI, 37 GII, 2 GIII, 1 GIV, 2 GV, 2 GVI, 1 GVII and 1 GX), 2 tentative P-groups and 14 tentative P-types. Future classification and nomenclature updates will be based on complete genome sequences and will be coordinated and disseminated by the international norovirus classification-working group.
We report the first dark matter search results using the commissioning data from PandaX-4T. Using a time projection chamber with 3.7 tonne of liquid xenon target and an exposure of 0.63 tonne·year, ...1058 candidate events are identified within an approximate nuclear recoil energy window between 5 and 100 keV. No significant excess over background is observed. Our data set a stringent limit to the dark matter-nucleon spin-independent interactions, with a lowest excluded cross section (90% C.L.) of 3.8×10^{-47} cm^{2} at a dark matter mass of 40 GeV/c^{2}.
Under these rules, a newly emerged virus is normally assigned to a species based on phylogeny and taxonomy.4 Through DivErsity pArtitioning by hieRarchical Clustering-based analyses,5 the newly ...emerged coronavirus was deemed not sufficiently novel but is a sister virus to SARS-CoV, the primary viral isolate defining the species. For various reasons, the name of a disease and its causative viral pathogen can be different, as exemplified by acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Given that SARS-CoV-2 is already being used in the scientific literature, a name change at this stage would cause confusion in the scientific community.