An inactivated gE-deleted pseudorabies vaccine provides complete clinical protection and reduces virus shedding against challenge by a Chinese pseudorabies variant

Background: Since the end of 2011 an outbreak of pseudorabies affected Chinese pig herds that had been vaccinated with the commercial vaccine made of Bartha K61 strain. It is now clear that the outbreak was caused by an emergent PRV variant. Even though vaccines made of PRV Bartha K61 strain can confer certain cross protection against PRV variants based on experimental data, less than optimal clinical protection and virus shedding reduction were observed, making the control or eradication of this disease difficult. Results: An infectious clone of PRV AH02LA strain was constructed to generate a gE deletion mutant PRV(LA-A(B)) strain. PRV(LA-A(B)) strain can reach a titer of 10(8.43) TCID50 /mL (50% tissue culture infectious dose) on BHK-21 cells. To evaluate the efficiency of the inactivated vaccine made of PRV(LA-A(B)) strain, thirty 3-week-old PRV-negative piglets were divided randomly into six groups for vaccination and challenge test. All five piglets in the challenge control showed typical clinical symptoms of pseudorabies post challenge. Sneezing and nasal discharge were observed in four and three piglets in groups C(vaccinated with inactivated PRV Bartha K61 strain vaccine) and D(vaccinated with live PRV Bartha K61 strain vaccine) respectively. In contrast, piglets in both groups A(vaccinated with inactivated PRV LA-AB strain vaccine) and B(vaccinated with inactivated PRV LA-A(B) strain vaccine with adjuvant) presented mild or no clinical symptoms. Moreover, viral titers detected via nasal swabs were approximately 100 times lower in group B than in the challenge control, and the duration of virus shedding (3-4 days) was shorter than in either the challenge control (5-10 days) or groups C and D (5-6 days). Conclusions: The infectious clone constructed in this study harbors the whole genome of the PRV variant AH02LA strain. The gE deletion mutant PRV(LA-A(B)) strain generated from PRV AH02LA strain can reach a high titer on BHK-21 cells. An inactivated vaccine of PRV LA-A(B) provides clinical protection and significantly reduces virus shedding post challenge, especially if accompanied by the adjuvant CVC1302. While Inactivated or live vaccines made of PRV Barth K61 strain can provide only partial protection in this test.