Better immune efficacy triggered by the inactivated gI/gE-deleted pseudorabies virus with the additional insertion of gC gene in mice and weaned pigs.

Abstract A new variant of pseudorabies virus (PRV) with high pathogenicity has been prevalent in many swineherds vaccinated with Bartha-K61 in China since 2011. Several gene-deleted vaccine candidates have been developed based on new emerging PRV variants. PRV-AH, a new emerging PRV strain from Anhui Province, was isolated in our laboratory in 2013. In the present study, rPRV-AH-gI-/gE- and rPRV-AH-gI-/gE-/gC+ were generated based on PRV-AH by homologous recombination. The growth kinetics of rPRV-AH-gI-/gE- and rPRV-AH-gI-/gE-/gC+ were similar to their parental strains. Compared with the commercial inactivated vaccine of Ea strain, the immune efficacy of the inactivated vaccine based on recombinant viruses was evaluated in mice and weaned pigs.. The result showed that the level of neutralizing antibody in mice immunized with rPRV-AH-gI-/gE-/gC+ was higher compared with those immunized with rPRV-AH-gI-/gE- at a dose of 106 TCID50 at 8 weeks post initial immunization (p