Pathogenicity of experimental infection with ‘pneumotropic’ porcine coronavirus

Virus localisation and lesions were studied in 14 one-week-old piglets following combined intranasal-oral inoculation with a British isolate of ‘pneumotropic’ porcine coronavirus (pcv) and were compared with the effects of transmissible gastroenteritis virus (tgev) infection in five piglets. Unlike TGEV-infected piglets, all pcv-inoculated piglets remained clinically healthy. Seroconversion was detected at seven days after inoculation. Mild bronchointerstitial pneumonia involving terminal airways was consistently present at two days after infection and thereafter. Both pcv and tgev infected bronchiolar epithelium and alveolar macrophages but, unlike tgev, replication by pcv in villous enterocytes was limited and did not cause villous atrophy.