Abstract
African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes acute hemorrhagic fever in domestic pigs and wild boars, resulting in incalculable economic losses to the pig industry. As the mechanism of viral infection is not clear, protective antigens have not been discovered or identified. In this study, we determined that the p30, pp62, p72, and CD2v proteins were all involved in the T cell immune response of live pigs infected with ASFV, among which p72 and pp62 proteins were the strongest. Panoramic scanning was performed on T cell epitopes of the p72 protein, and three high-frequency positive epitopes were selected to construct a swine leukocyte antigen (SLA)-tetramer, and ASFV-specific T cells were detected. Subsequently, the specific T cell and humoral immune responses of ASFV-infected pigs and surviving pigs were compared. The results demonstrate that the specific T cellular immunity responses gradually increased during the infection and were higher than that in the surviving pigs in the late stages of infection. The same trend was observed in specific humoral immune responses, which were highest in surviving pigs. In general, our study provides key information for the exploration of ASFV-specific immune responses and the development of an ASFV vaccine.
Highlights
African swine fever virus (ASFV) infects domestic pigs, leading to acute hemorrhagic disease, which causes huge economic losses to the pig industry
The biotinylation efficiency of single-chain trimer (SCT) was evaluated by SDS-PAGE gel-shift assays. We found that it was sufficient for further exbe presented by there the corresponding alleles, providing a reference for the step in the periments, and were trace monomers of SCT-peptide 334 (P334), SCT-Peptide 351 (P351), and SCT-peptide 366 (P366), as construction of tetramers
We found that it was sufficient for further experiments, and there were trace monomers of SCT-P334, SCT-P351, and SCT-P366, as well as various forms of aggregates (Supplementary Figure S5)
Summary
African swine fever virus (ASFV) infects domestic pigs, leading to acute hemorrhagic disease, which causes huge economic losses to the pig industry. The virus that causes African swine fever belongs to the Asfarviridae family, a large icosahedral double-stranded DNA virus with a linear genome of 189 kb, containing more than 180 genes [3] It circulates in its natural hosts (warthogs, bush hogs, and soft ticks), which show no signs of disease, while ASFV has caused explosive deaths when infecting domestic herds [4]. Swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) tetramers were prepared from positive T cell epitopes to evaluate specific cell immunity and humoral immunity in infected and surviving pigs. Based on this investigation, we illustrate the key protein profiles specific to the virus and reveal the role and mechanism of the host viral T cell response to ASFV infection.
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