Abstract
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is a positive sense, single-stranded RNA virus that is known to infect only pigs. The virus emerged in the late 1980s and became endemic in most swine producing countries, causing substantial economic losses to the swine industry. The first reverse genetics system for PRRSV was reported in 1998. Since then, several infectious cDNA clones for PRRSV have been constructed. The availability of these infectious cDNA clones has facilitated the genetic modifications of the viral genome at precise locations. Common approaches to manipulate the viral genome include site-directed mutagenesis, deletion of viral genes or gene fragments, insertion of foreign genes, and swapping genes between PRRSV strains or between PRRSV and other members of the Arteriviridae family. In this review, we describe the approaches to construct an infectious cDNA for PRRSV and the ten major applications of these infectious clones to study virus biology and virus–host interaction, and to design a new generation of vaccines with improved levels of safety and efficacy.
Highlights
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is the causative agent of a disease in pigs that was first reported in the United States (U.S.) in 1987 and subsequently in Europe in 1990 [1].The virus is circulating in most swine producing countries and is the leading cause of economic losses to the swine industry
Pregnant sows infected with PRRSV during the last trimester of gestation may result in abortion with stillborn, partially autolyzed, and mummified fetuses while young pigs infected with PRRSV may develop clinical signs including fever, severe dyspnea, anorexia, lethargy, edema of the eyelids, and blue or red discoloration of the ears or hindquarters
To identify viral proteins that are responsible for the viral cell tropism, a series of the chimeric viruses has been constructed by swapping viral proteins between PRRSV and equine arteritis virus (EAV), a prototype virus of the family Arteriviridae
Summary
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is the causative agent of a disease in pigs that was first reported in the United States (U.S.) in 1987 and subsequently in Europe in 1990 [1]. 13–16 nonstructural proteins (nsps) responsible for replication and transcription of the viral RNA genomes (Reviewed in [7]). As with other positive-sense RNA viruses, the PRRSV genome is fully infectious once it is introduced into cells. This provides the basis for the construction of the reverse genetics system for PRRSV. We describe the approaches to construct a reverse genetics system for PRRSV and its applications to study virus biology, virus–host interaction, and to design a new generation of vaccines with improved levels of safety and efficacy (Table 1)
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