Enhanced protective immunity of the chimeric vector-based vaccine rAdV-SFV-E2 against classical swine fever in pigs by a Salmonella bacterial ghost adjuvant.

Abstract

Classical swine fever (CSF) is a highly contagious swine disease caused by classical swine fever virus (CSFV). Previously, we demonstrated that rAdV-SFV-E2, an adenovirus-delivered, Semliki Forest virus replicon-vectored marker vaccine against CSF, is able to protect pigs against lethal CSFV challenge. From an economical point of view, it will be beneficial to reduce the minimum effective dose of the vaccine. This study was designed to test the adjuvant effects of Salmonella enteritidis-derived bacterial ghosts (BG) to enhance the protective immunity of rAdV-SFV-E2 in pigs. Groups of 5-week-old pigs (n = 4) were immunized intramuscularly twice with 105 median tissue culture infective doses (TCID50) rAdV-SFV-E2 combined with 1010 colony forming units (CFU) BG, 106 or 105 TCID50 rAdV-SFV-E2 alone or 1010 CFU BG alone at an interval of 3 weeks, and challenged with the highly virulent CSFV Shimen strain at 1 week post-booster immunization. The results show that the pigs inoculated with 105 TCID50 rAdV-SFV-E2 plus BG or 106 TCID50 rAdV-SFV-E2 alone were completely protected from lethal CSFV challenge, in contrast with the pigs vaccinated with 105 TCID50 rAdV-SFV-E2 or BG alone, which displayed partial or no protection following virulent challenge. The data indicate that BG are a promising adjuvant to enhance the efficacy of rAdV-SFV-E2 and possibly other vaccines.