Abstract

Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), which is caused by the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), has occurred worldwide and poses a serious threat to the pig industry. Intestine is the main function site of PEDV; therefore, it is important to develop an oral mucosal immunity vaccine against this virus infection. Most traditional plasmid delivery vectors use antibiotic genes as a selective marker, easily leading to antibiotic accumulation and gene contamination. In this study, to explore whether the alanine racemase gene (Alr) could be used as a screening marker and develop an efficient oral vaccine against PEDV infection, a recombinant strain was constructed using Lactobacillus casei with Alr deletion (L. casei ΔAlr W56) to deliver the Alr gene and a core-neutralizing epitope (COE) antigen. This recombinant bacterium efficiently induced secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA)-based mucosal and immunoglobulin G (IgG)-based humoral immune responses via oral vaccination in mice. Compared to the other strains, the recombinant bacteria were able to grow without the addition of D-alanine, revealing that Alr in the plasmid could function normally in defective bacteria. This oral mucosal vaccine would provide a useful strategy to substitute the application of antibiotics in the future and induce efficient immune responses against PEDV infection.

Highlights

  • Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), characterized by watery diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration, infects pigs at different ages and is caused by the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) [1]

  • To determine the neutralizing activity of the sera or intestinal mucusal antibodies obtained from the mice immunized with pPG-alanine racemase gene (Alr)-core-neutralizing epitope (COE)/∆Alr W56, 50 μL 2 × serial diluted samples were collected on 40 d post-immunization, mixed with 50 μL of PEDV passages with 200 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID50) in intestinal epithelial cells (IPECs) and incubated at 37 ◦C for 1 h

  • All recombinant strains were able to grow on an MRS agar medium in the presence of D-alanine, while only the strain pPG-Alr-COE/∆Alr W56 was able to grow in a medium without D-alanine. These results indicated that the recombinant strains were successfully constructed, and the Alr gene in the plasmid could play a similar role to that in the L. casei W56 genome

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Summary

Introduction

Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), characterized by watery diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration, infects pigs at different ages and is caused by the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) [1]. D-alanine is not a common composition of conventional media, and previous studies have shown that its exogenous addition could recover the normal growth of the Alr gene deletion bacteria [19,21,22]. This suggests that D-alanine selection may be a promising candidate for the substitution of antibiotics in Lactobacillus. Its immunogenicity as an oral vaccine was evaluated through the significant levels of anti-PEDV systemic immunoglobulin G (IgG) and mucosal IgA antibody responses in mice. Our results clearly showed that the recombinant strains were effective at inducing anti-PEDV mucosal immune responses

Materials and Methods
Details
Identification of the Expression of the Protein of Interest
Immunization
Sample Collection
Neutralizing Activity of the Samples
Statistical Analysis
Results

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