scholarly journals Development of Optimized Protocol for Culturing African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) Field Isolates in MA104 Cells

Author(s):  
Hyeok-il Kwon ◽  
DUY tien DO ◽  
Hung Van Vo ◽  
Seung-Chul Lee ◽  
Min-Ho kim ◽  
...  

Abstract I. Background: ASFV causes a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease with a high mortality rates in domestic pigs. The virus has been isolated across various cell lines, but identifying a cell line to develop an effective commercial vaccine has been challenging which a major obstacle to effective vaccine development is identifying a commercial cell line that is suitable for high-yield viral replication.II. Methods and Results: The goal of this study was to identify a candidate commercial cell line for the replication of African swine fever virus (ASFV) by comparing several available cell lines with various medium factors. In the sensitivity test of cells, MA104 and MARC-145 had strong potential for ASFV replication. Next, MA104 cells were used to compare the adaptation of ASFV obtained from tissue homogenates and blood samples in various infectious media. At the 10th passage, the ASFV obtained from the blood sample had a significantly higher viral load than that obtained from the tissue sample (P = 0.000), exhibiting a mean Ct value = 20.39 ± 1.99 compared with 25.36 ± 2.11. For blood samples, ASFV grew on infectious medium B more robustly than on infectious medium A (P = 0.006), corresponding to a Ct value = 19.58 ± 2.10 versus 21.20 ± 1.47. ASFV originating from blood specimens continued to multiply gradually and peaked in the 15th passage, exhibiting a Ct value = 14.36 ± 0.22 in infectious medium B and a Ct value = 15.42 ± 0.14 in infectious medium A. However, there was no difference (P = 0.062) in ASFV growth between infectious media A and B when ASFV was cultured from tissue homogenates. III. Conclusions: A model was developed to enhance ASFV replication through adaptation to MA104 cells and the lack of mutation in serial culture passages may serve to maintain the immunogenicity of ASFV isolates when they are developed as vaccine candidates.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duy Tien Do ◽  
Toan Tat Nguyen

Abstract The goal of this study was to identify a candidate commercial cell line for the replication of African swine fever virus (ASFV) by comparing several available cell lines with various medium factors. In the sensitivity test of cells, MA104 and MARC-145 had strong potential for ASFV replication. Next, MA104 cells were used to compare the adaptation of ASFV obtained from tissue homogenates and blood samples in various infectious media. At the 10th passage, the ASFV obtained from the blood sample had a significantly higher viral load than that obtained from the tissue sample (P = 0.00), exhibiting a mean Ct value = 20.39 ± 1.99 compared with 25.36 ± 2.11. For blood samples, ASFV grew on infectious medium B more robustly than on infectious medium A (P = 0.006), corresponding to a Ct value = 19.58 ± 2.10 versus 21.20 ± 1.47. ASFV originating from blood specimens continued to multiply gradually and peaked in the 15th passage, exhibiting a Ct value = 14.36 ± 0.22 in infectious medium B and a Ct value = 15.42 ± 0.14 in infectious medium A. However, there was no difference (P = 0.062) in ASFV growth between infectious media A and B when ASFV was cultured from tissue homogenates. In this study, a model was developed to enhance ASFV replication through adaptation to MA104 cells and the lack of mutation in serial culture passages may serve to maintain the immunogenicity of ASFV isolates when they are developed as vaccine candidates.


Pathogens ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Ros-Lucas ◽  
Florencia Correa-Fiz ◽  
Laia Bosch-Camós ◽  
Fernando Rodriguez ◽  
Julio Alonso-Padilla

African swine fever virus is the etiological agent of African swine fever, a transmissible severe hemorrhagic disease that affects pigs, causing massive economic losses. There is neither a treatment nor a vaccine available, and the only method to control its spread is by extensive culling of pigs. So far, classical vaccine development approaches have not yielded sufficiently good results in terms of concomitant safety and efficacy. Nowadays, thanks to advances in genomic and proteomic techniques, a reverse vaccinology strategy can be explored to design alternative vaccine formulations. In this study, ASFV protein sequences were analyzed using an in-house pipeline based on publicly available immunoinformatic tools to identify epitopes of interest for a prospective vaccine ensemble. These included experimentally validated sequences from the Immune Epitope Database, as well as de novo predicted sequences. Experimentally validated and predicted epitopes were prioritized following a series of criteria that included evolutionary conservation, presence in the virulent and currently circulating variant Georgia 2007/1, and lack of identity to either the pig proteome or putative proteins from pig gut microbiota. Following this strategy, 29 B-cell, 14 CD4+ T-cell and 6 CD8+ T-cell epitopes were selected, which represent a starting point to investigating the protective capacity of ASFV epitope-based vaccines.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kentaro Masujin ◽  
Tomoya Kitamura ◽  
Ken -ichiro Kameyama ◽  
Kota Okadera ◽  
Tatsuya Nishi ◽  
...  

AbstractAfrican swine fever virus (ASFV) is the etiological agent of African swine fever (ASF), a fatal hemorrhagic disease of domestic pigs and wild boar. The virus primarily infects macrophage and monocyte host cells, these do not grow in vitro. Many attempts have been made to establish sustainable ASFV-sensitive cell lines, but which supported only low viral replication levels of limited, mostly artificially attenuated strains of ASFV. Here, we examined the competence of a novel cell line of immortalized porcine kidney macrophages (IPKM) for ASFV infection. We demonstrated that IPKM cells can facilitate high levels (> 107.0 TCID50/mL) of viral replication of ASFV, and hemadsorption reactions and cytopathic effects were observed as with porcine alveolar macrophages when inoculated with virulent field isolates: Armenia07, Kenya05/Tk-1, and Espana75. These results suggested that IPKM may be a valuable tool for the isolation, replication, and genetic manipulation of ASFV in both basic and applied ASF research.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlad Petrovan ◽  
Anusyah Rathakrishnan ◽  
Muneeb Islam ◽  
Lynnette Goatley ◽  
Katy Moffat ◽  
...  

The limited knowledge on the role of many of the approximately 170 proteins encoded by African swine fever virus restricts progress towards vaccine development. In this study we investigated the effect of deleting combinations of different genes from a previously attenuated virus, BeninΔDP148R on: virus replication in macrophages, virus persistence and clinical signs post immunization, and induction of protection against challenge. Deletion of either EP402R or EP153R genes individually or in combination from BeninΔDP148R did not reduce virus replication in vitro. However, deletion of EP402R dramatically reduced viral persistence in vivo, whilst maintaining high levels of protection against challenge. The additional deletion of EP153R (BeninΔDP148RΔEP153RΔEP402R) further attenuated the virus and no viremia or clinical signs were observed post immunization. This was associated with decreased protection and detection of moderate levels of challenge virus in blood. Interestingly, the deletion of EP153R alone from BeninΔDP148R did not result in further virus attenuation and a slight increase in virus genome copies in blood was observed at different times post immunization when compared with BeninΔDP148R. These results show that EP402R and EP153R have a synergistic role in promoting viremia, however EP153R alone does not seem to have a major impact on virus levels in blood.


Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayushi Rai ◽  
Sarah Pruitt ◽  
Elizabeth Ramirez-Medina ◽  
Elizabeth A. Vuono ◽  
Ediane Silva ◽  
...  

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is causing outbreaks both in domestic pigs and wild boar in Europe and Asia. In 2018, the largest pig producing country, China, reported its first outbreak of African swine fever (ASF). Since then, the disease has quickly spread to all provinces in China and to other countries in southeast Asia, and most recently to India. Outbreaks of the disease occur in Europe as far west as Poland, and one isolated outbreak has been reported in Belgium. The current outbreak strain is highly contagious and can cause a high degree of lethality in domestic pigs, leading to widespread and costly losses to the industry. Currently, detection of infectious ASFV in field clinical samples requires accessibility to primary swine macrophage cultures, which are infrequently available in most regional veterinary diagnostic laboratories. Here, we report the identification of a commercially available cell line, MA-104, as a suitable substrate for virus isolation of African swine fever virus.


2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (18) ◽  
pp. 9731-9739 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Eulálio ◽  
I. Nunes-Correia ◽  
A. L. Carvalho ◽  
C. Faro ◽  
V. Citovsky ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT African swine fever virus (ASFV), a large icosahedral deoxyvirus, is the causative agent of an economically relevant hemorrhagic disease that affects domestic pigs. The major purpose of the present study was to investigate the nuclear transport activities of the ASFV p37 and p14 proteins, which result from the proteolytic processing of a common precursor. Experiments were performed by using yeast-based nucleocytoplasmic transport assays and by analysis of the subcellular localization of different green fluorescent and Myc fusion proteins in mammalian cells. The results obtained both in yeast and mammalian cells clearly demonstrated that ASFV p14 protein is imported into the nucleus but not exported to the cytoplasm. The ability of p37 protein to be exported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm of both yeast and mammalian cells was also demonstrated, and the results clearly indicate that p37 nuclear export is dependent on the interaction of the protein with the CRM-1 receptor. In addition, p37 was shown to exhibit nuclear import activity in mammalian cells. The p37 protein nuclear import and export abilities described here constitute the first report of a nucleocytoplasmic shuttling protein encoded by the ASFV genome. Overall, the overlapping results obtained for green fluorescent protein fusions and Myc-tagged proteins undoubtedly demonstrate that ASFV p37 and p14 proteins exhibit nucleocytoplasmic transport activities. These findings are significant for understanding the role these proteins play in the replication cycle of ASFV.


Author(s):  
Yuhang Zhang ◽  
Qingmei Li ◽  
Junqing Guo ◽  
Dongliang Li ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
...  

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and usually deadly porcine infectious disease listed as a notifiable disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). It has brought huge economic losses worldwide, especially since 2018, the first outbreak in China. As there are still no effective vaccines available to date, diagnosis of ASF is essential for its surveillance and control, especially in areas far from city with limited resources and poor settings. In this study, a sensitive, specific, rapid, and simple molecular point of care testing for African swine fever virus (ASFV) B646L gene in blood samples was established, including treatment of blood samples with simple dilution and boiling for 5 min, isothermal amplification with recombinase-aided amplification (RAA) at 37°C in a water bath for 10 min, and visual readout with lateral flow assay (LFA) at room temperature for 10–15 min. Without the need to extract viral DNA in blood samples, the intact workflow from sampling to final diagnostic decision can be completed with minimal equipment requirement in 30 min. The detection limit of RAA-LFA for synthesized B646L gene-containing plasmid was 10 copies/μl, which was 10-fold more sensitive than OIE-recommended PCR and quantitative PCR. In addition, no positive readout of RAA-LFA was observed in testing classical swine fever virus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus 2, exhibiting good specificity. Evaluation of clinical blood samples of RAA-LFA showed 100% coincident rate with OIE-recommended PCR, in testing both extracted DNAs and treated bloods. We also found that some components in blood samples greatly inhibited PCR performance, but had little effect on RAA. Inhibitory effect can be eliminated when blood was diluted at least 32–64-fold for direct PCR, while only a 2–4 fold dilution of blood was suitable for direct RAA, indicating RAA is a better choice than PCR when blood is used as detecting sample. Taken together, we established an sensitive, specific, rapid, and simple RAA-LFA for ASFV molecular detection without the need to extract viral DNA, providing a good choice for point of care testing of ASF diagnosis in the future.


Vaccines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 625
Author(s):  
Daniel Pérez-Núñez ◽  
Eva Castillo-Rosa ◽  
Gonzalo Vigara-Astillero ◽  
Raquel García-Belmonte ◽  
Carmina Gallardo ◽  
...  

No efficient vaccines exist against African swine fever virus (ASFV), which causes a serious disease in wild boars and domestic pigs that produces great industrial and ecological concerns worldwide. An extensive genetic characterization of the original ASFV stocks used to produce live attenuated vaccine (LAV) prototypes is needed for vaccine biosecurity and control. Here, we sequenced for the first time the Arm/07 stock which was obtained from an infected pig during the Armenia outbreak in 2007, using an improved viral dsDNA purification method together with high coverage analysis. There was unexpected viral heterogeneity within the stock, with two genetically distinct ASFV subpopulations. The first, represented by the Arm/07/CBM/c2 clone, displayed high sequence identity to the updated genotype II Georgia 2007/1, whereas the second (exemplified by clone Arm/07/CBM/c4) displayed a hemadsorbing phenotype and grouped within genotype I based on a central region conserved among all members of this group. Intriguingly, Arm/07/CBM/c4 contained a unique EP402R sequence, produced by a single mutation in the N-terminal region. Importantly, Arm/07/CBM/c4 showed in vitro features of attenuated strains regarding innate immune response pathway. Both Arm/07/CBM/c2 and c4 represent well-characterized viral clones, useful for different molecular and virus-host interaction studies, including virulence studies and vaccine development.


2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Kleiboeker ◽  
Glen A. Scoles

AbstractAfrican swine fever virus (ASFV) is the only known DNA arbovirus and the sole member of the family Asfarviridae. It causes a lethal, hemorrhagic disease in domestic pigs. ASFV is enzootic in sub-Saharan Africa and is maintained in a sylvatic cycle by infecting both wild members of the Suidae (e.g. warthogs) and the argasid tickOrnithodoros porcinus porcinus. The pathogenesis of ASFV inO. porcinus porcinusticks is characterized by a low infectious dose, lifelong infection, efficient transmission to both pigs and ticks, and low mortality until after the first oviposition. ASFV pathogenesis in warthogs is characterized by an inapparent infection with transient, low viremic titers. ThusO. porcinus porcinusticks probably constitute the most important natural vector of ASFV, although both the mammalian and tick hosts are probably required for the maintenance of ASFV in the sylvatic cycle. The mechanism of ASFV transmission from the sylvatic cycle to domestic pigs is probably through infected ticks feeding on pigs. In addition toO. porcinus porcinus, a number of North American, Central American and Caribbean species ofOrnithodoroshave been shown to be potential vectors of ASFV.


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