Isolation and Characterization of a Porcine Transmissible Gastroenteritis Coronavirus in Northeast China

Dongwei Yuan; Zihan Yan; Mingyue Li; Yi Wang; Mingjun Su; Dongbo Sun

doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.611721

Isolation and Characterization of a Porcine Transmissible Gastroenteritis Coronavirus in Northeast China

Front Vet Sci. 2021 Mar 2:8:611721. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.611721. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Dongwei Yuan^{1

2}, Zihan Yan¹, Mingyue Li¹, Yi Wang¹, Mingjun Su¹, Dongbo Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, Daqing, China.
² Daqing Center of Inspection and Testing for Agricultural Products Ministry of Agriculture, Daqing, China.

Abstract

Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) is a coronavirus (CoV) that is a major pathogenity of viral enteritis and diarrhea in suckling piglets, causing high morbidity and mortality. In this study, a TGEV strain HQ2016 was isolated from northeast China and characterized its genome sequence and pathogenicity. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that the TGEV HQ2016 strain was more similar to the TGEV Purdue cluster than to the Miller cluster. Both recombination and phylogenetic analysis based on each structural and non-structural gene revealed no recombination event in the HQ2016 strain. Experimental infection study using colostrum-deprived newborn piglets successfully showed that the HQ2016 can cause clinical symptoms including anorexia and yellow-to-whitish watery diarrhea, which are characteristics of TGE, in the inoculated piglets 48 h post-inoculation. These results provide valuable information about the evolution of the porcine CoVs.

Keywords: coronavirus; pathogenicity; phylogenetic analysis; transmissible gastroenteritis virus; virus isolate.