Oral administration of inactivated porcine epidemic diarrhea virus activate DCs in porcine Peyer’s patches

Yuan, Chen; Zhang, En; Huang, Lulu; Wang, Jialu; Yang, Qian

A total of 6 male (cross-bred Duroc/Landrace/Yorkshire) piglets: aged 2-day-old; weight, 1.30-1.50 kg, were obtained from Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Nanjing, China). The piglets were born via natural farrow and were fed with milk. The piglets were housed in Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences Pig Farm with a constant humidity (60%) and temperature (26°C) at 12 h light/dark cycle. The PEDV (CV777) was propagated on Vero cells in DMEM (GIBCO, USA) with 5% fetal bovine serum and purified the collection by sucrose gradient centrifugation. Ultraviolet rays inactivated PEDV (UV-PEDV) were produced by exposing the virus to ultraviolet rays for 6 h at an optimal cross linking value. The piglets were randomly divided into two groups (3 piglets each group), respectively fed with UV-inactivated PEDV (100μg/dose) or equal volume of PBS twice at days 5 and 30 for two months. The next week after the last administration, these pigs were euthanized by intravenous injection of pentobarbital sodium (100 mg/kg) and piglets were sacrificed and ileum samples were collected. All procedures performed on the animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Nanjing Agricultural University and followed the National Institutes of Health guidelines for the performance of animal experiments.