Frontiers in Veterinary Science (May 2023)

Screening and identification of the dominant antigens of the African swine fever virus

  • Zhaoyang Xu,
  • Zhaoyang Xu,
  • Yifan Hu,
  • Junbo Li,
  • Junbo Li,
  • Ancheng Wang,
  • Xin Meng,
  • Xin Meng,
  • Lingchao Chen,
  • Jianchao Wei,
  • Wu Tong,
  • Ning Kong,
  • Lingxue Yu,
  • Hai Yu,
  • Tongling Shan,
  • Guangzhi Tong,
  • Guihua Wang,
  • Hao Zheng,
  • Hao Zheng

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1175701
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10

Abstract

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African swine fever is a highly lethal contagious disease of pigs for which there is no vaccine. Its causative agent African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a highly complex enveloped DNA virus encoding more than 150 open reading frames. The antigenicity of ASFV is still unclear at present. In this study, 35 proteins of ASFV were expressed by Escherichia coli, and ELISA was developed for the detection of antibodies against these proteins. p30, p54, and p22 were presented as the major antigens of ASFV, positively reacting with all five clinical ASFV-positive pig sera, and 10 pig sera experimentally infected by ASFV. Five proteins (pB475L, pC129R, pE199L, pE184L, and pK145R) reacted well with ASFV-positive sera. The p30 induced a rapid and strong antibody immune response during ASFV infection. These results will promote the development of subunit vaccines and serum diagnostic methods against ASFV.

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