Hui Chen

Canine circovirus (CanineCV) is an emerging virus in canines. Since the first strain of CanineCV was reported in 2012, CanineCV infection has shown a trend toward becoming a global epidemic. CanineCV infection often occurs with coinfection with other pathogens that may aggravate the symptoms of disease in affected dogs. Currently, CanineCV has not been successfully isolated by laboratories, resulting in a lack of clarity regarding its physicochemical properties, replication process, and pathogenic characteristics. To address this knowledge gap, the following results were obtained in this study. First, a CanineCV strain was rescued in F81 cells using infectious clone plasmids. Second, the Rep protein produced by the viral packaging rescue process was found to be associated with cytopathic effects. Additionally, the Rep protein and CanineCV inhibited the activation of the type I interferon (IFN-I) promoter, blocking subsequent expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). Furthermore, Rep was found to broadly inhibit host protein expression. We speculate that in CanineCV and canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2) coinfection cases, CanineCV promotes CPV-2 replication by inducing immunosuppression, which may increase the severity of clinical symptoms.

Classical swine fever (CSF) is one of the most important viral diseases in swine, causing severe economic losses in the swine industry. In China, CSF is one of the key diseases that needs to be controlled; the government has implemented control measures, and vaccination with C-strain vaccines (C-vacs) has been compulsory since the 1950s. C-vacs do not allow the differentiation of field virus-infected and vaccinated animals (DIVA). In 2012, China proposed a goal of eradicating CSF. Additionally, a baculovirus-expressed E2 subunit vaccine (E2-vac) was licensed in 2018. However, the C-vac and E2-vac characteristics have not been compared. Here, we demonstrate that both the C-vac and E2-vac provide complete protection against CSF in pigs. The E2-vac allows DIVA, and the E2 antibody responses of stimulated pigs are developed earlier and are stronger than the C-vac antibody responses. Therefore, the E2-vac is a new candidate licensed vaccine to completely eradicate CSF on pig farms.