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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Animal Disease Center » Ruminant Diseases and Immunology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #401853
Research Project: Intervention Strategies to Prevent and Control Viral Respiratory Pathogens of Ruminants

Location: Ruminant Diseases and Immunology Research

Title: Multivariate analysis as a method to evaluate antigenic relationships between BVDV 1b field isolates and vaccine strains

Author
item FALKENBERG, SHOLLIE - Auburn University
item Ma, Hao
item Casas, Eduardo
item Dassanayake, Rohana
item WALZ, PAUL - Auburn University
item RAITHEL, GAGE - Auburn University
item SILVAS, SCOTT - Auburn University
item Neill, John

Submitted to: Viruses
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/9/2023
Publication Date: 10/13/2023
Citation: Falkenberg, S.M., Ma, H., Casas, E., Dassanayake, R.P., Walz, P.H., Raithel, G., Silvas, S., Neill, J.D. 2023. Multivariate analysis as a method to evaluate antigenic relationships between BVDV 1b field isolates and vaccine strains. Viruses. 15(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/v15102085.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/v15102085

Interpretive Summary: Antigenic differences between bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) vaccine strains and field isolates can result in lack of vaccine efficacy. Currently licensed BVDV vaccines in the US only contain BVDV types 1a and 2a, but not 1b. Given the prevalence of BVDV 1b type in the US, there is a concern that current BVDV vaccines may not confer protection against all types. To test this possibility, calves were inoculated with several BVDV-1b and their sera were tested against BVDV vaccine and field strains. There were variations between vaccine strains and BVDV-1b isolates. Although most BVDV-1b isolates tested were antigenically similar, several antigenically dissimilar isolates were also identified. The observed dissimilarity among BVDV-1b isolates and vaccine strains may have lead to lack of cross-reactivity. Therefore, inclusion of a single BVDV-1b strain in the vaccine may not necessarily provide antigenic breath against all BVDV-1b viruses.

Technical Abstract: Antigenicity of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) has been evaluated using virus neutralizing titer data analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and demonstrated numerous isolates appear to be antigenically divergent from US vaccine strains. The lack of BVDV-1b strains contained in currently licensed vaccines has raised concerns regarding lack of protection against BVDV-1b field strains. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antigenic diversity of BVDV-1b strains and better understand the breath of antigenic relatedness using BVDV-1b antisera. Results from this analysis provided greater insight into the antigenic diversity observed among BVDV-1b isolates. Data from this study further supports that genetic assignment into BVDV-1b subgenotype, is not representative of antigenic relatedness, as some BVDV-1b isolates are observed to be as antigenically dissimilar as BVDV-2a isolates. PCA highlights isolates that are antigenically divergent from members of the same species and subgenotype and conversely isolates that belong to different subgenotypes have similar antigenic characteristics when using antisera from vaccine isolates. Collectively data from this study would suggest that while most BVDV-1b isolates are antigenically similar, there are antigenically dissimilar BVDV-1b isolates and this dissimilarity is a result of lack of cross-reactivity which may result in lack of protection.