Harnessing the Genetic Plasticity of Porcine Circovirus Type 2 to Target Suicidal Replication.

ABSTRACT: Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2), the causative agent of a wasting disease in weanling piglets, has periodically evolved into several new subtypes since its discovery, indicating that the efficacy of current vaccines can be improved. Although a DNA virus, the mutation rates of PCV2 resemble RNA viruses. The hypothesis that recoding of selected serine and leucine codons in the PCV2b capsid gene could result in stop codons due to mutations occurring during viral replication and thus result in rapid attenuation was tested. Vaccination of weanling pigs with the suicidal vaccine constructs elicited strong virus-neutralizing antibody responses. Vaccination prevented lesions, body-weight loss, and viral replication on challenge with a heterologous PCV2d strain. The suicidal PCV2 vaccine construct

SUBMITTER: Rakibuzzaman A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8473201 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature