A porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus vaccine based on the synthetic attenuated virus engineering approach is attenuated and effective in protecting pigs against macroscopic lung lesio

摘要

Current porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) vaccines are often minimally protective. Rapid production of attenuated farm-specific vaccines is a feasible alternative to utilizing commercial vaccines. Recently the synthetic attenuated virus engineering (SAVE) approach was utilized to rapidly attenuate the wild-type PRRSV isolate VR2385.1 Specifically, the codon-pairs of the major envelope GP5 gene of PRRSV were rapidly deoptimized through a computer algorithm which resulted in amodified GP5 nucleotide sequence while at the same time retaining the original amino acid sequence. The resulting virus was designated SAVE5. The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of SAVE5 to reduce or prevent PRRSV-associated clinical signs, lesions and viremia following experimental challenge with the homologous virulent parental strain.