Investigation of the Role of the Spike Protein in Reversing the Virulence of the Highly Virulent Taiwan Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Pintung 52 Strains and Its Attenuated Counterpart

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has continuously caused severe economic losses to the global swine industries; however, no successful vaccine against PEDV has been developed. In this study, we generated four autologous recombinant viruses, including the highly virulent iPEDVPT-P5, attenuated iPEDVPT-P96, and two chimeric viruses (iPEDVPT-P5-96S and iPEDVPT-P96-5S) with the reciprocally exchanged spike (S) gene, to study the role of the S gene in PEDV pathogenesis. A deeper understanding of PEDV attenuation will aid in the rational design of a live attenuated vaccine (LAV) using reverse genetics system. Our results showed that replacing the S gene from the highly virulent iPEDVPT-P5 led to complete restoration of virulence of the attenuated iPEDVPT-P96, with nearly identical viral shedding, diarrhea pattern, and mortality rate as the parental iPEDVPT-P5. In contrast, substitution of the S gene with that from the attenuated iPEDVPT-P96 resulted in partial attenuation of iPEDVPT-P5, exhibiting similar viral shedding and diarrhea patterns as the parental iPEDVPT-P96 with slightly severe histological lesions and higher mortality rate. Collectively, our data confirmed that the attenuation of the PEDVPT-P96 virus is primarily attributed to mutations in the S gene. However, mutation in S gene alone could not fully attenuate the virulence of iPEDVPT-P5. Gene (s) other than S gene might also play a role in determining virulence.