Molecular epidemiological investigation of group A porcine rotavirus in East China

Ran Tao; Xinjian Chang; Jinzhu Zhou; Xuejiao Zhu; Shanshan Yang; Kemang Li; Laqiang Gu; Xuehan Zhang; Bin Li

doi:10.3389/fvets.2023.1138419

Molecular epidemiological investigation of group A porcine rotavirus in East China

Front Vet Sci. 2023 Mar 21:10:1138419. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1138419. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ran Tao^{1

2

3}, Xinjian Chang^{1

2

3}, Jinzhu Zhou^{1

2

3}, Xuejiao Zhu^{1

2

3}, Shanshan Yang^{1

2

3}, Kemang Li^{1

2

3}, Laqiang Gu^{1

2

3

4}, Xuehan Zhang^{1

2

3}, Bin Li^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biological Engineering and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Nanjing, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Food Quality and Safety-State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Ministry of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
³ Jiangsu Co-innovation Center for Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
⁴ College of Veterinary Medicine, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, China.

Abstract

Group A porcine rotavirus (RVA) is a serious threat to the breeding industry worldwide, which was associated with severe diarrhea in piglets. However, the prevalence and molecular characterizations of RVA circulating in farms of East China remains largely unknown. Five hundred and ninety-four samples were collected from 35 farms in East China from September 2017 to December 2019. The results showed that 16.8% was positive for RVA of all samples. Among different types of samples, the highest positive rate of RVA was intestinal samples (19.5%), and among pigs at different growth stages, the highest detection rate of RVA in piglets was 18.5%. Furthermore, the VP7 and VP4 genes of nine positive samples were sequenced for alignment and phylogenetic analysis. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the nine isolates belong to four kinds of genotype combinations correspondingly: G9P[7](5/9), G5P[13](2/9), G9P[13](1/9), and G5P[7](1/9).The data suggested that multiple genotypes combinations of RVA were circulating in pigs in East China. Thus, it's necessary to continuously survey the prevalence of RVA in pigs, aiding the rational application of vaccines or other measures for the prevention and control of RVA spread.

Keywords: East China; VP4; VP7; porcine rotavirus; prevalence.

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by National Key Research and Development Program (2022YFD1800601), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31872481 and 32272996), Jiangsu Province Natural Sciences Foundation (BK20210158), Jiangsu Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Fund [CX(22)3028], Innovation Foundation of Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences [ZX(21)1217], the Special Project of Northern Jiangsu (SZ-LYG202109), the JBGS Project of Seed Industry Revitalization in Jiangsu Province [JBGS(2021)024], and Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent (2022ZB766).