AccScience Publishing / MI / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/MI025260059
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Isolation and identification of a highly pathogenic strain of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus

Yongbo Xia1 ,  Xiaolu Li1 ,  Xiaowei Wang1 ,  Xiaoyuan Diao1 ,  Wenjing Qiu1 ,  Yihong He1 ,  Yue Li1 ,  Yunfei Li1 ,  Chunyi Xue1 ,  Yongchang Cao1 ,  Hanqin Shen2 ,  Zhichao Xu1*
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1 State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
2 Guangdong Provincial Enterprise Key Laboratory of Healthy Animal Husbandry and Environment Control, Wen’s Foodstuff Group Co. Ltd., Yunfu, Guangdong, China
MI, 025260059 https://doi.org/10.36922/MI025260059
Received: 28 June 2025 | Revised: 24 July 2025 | Accepted: 5 September 2025 | Published online: 3 October 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) causes acute watery diarrhea and high mortality in neonatal piglets, resulting in substantial economic losses to the global swine industry. Here, we successfully isolated a PEDV strain, designated CHN-CQ-2021, from PEDV-positive diarrheic samples collected from a pig farm in Chongqing, China. Electron microscopy observation revealed that the CHN-CQ-2021 strain exhibited typical coronavirus morphology and could be recognized by PEDV-specific antibodies. Phylogenetic analysis of its full-length genome and S gene further classified this isolate as a G2b variant strain. Importantly, 1-day-old newborn piglets were orally challenged with CHN-CQ-2021 at 2 × 106 50% tissue culture infectious dose/mL. Compared with the control group, the infected piglets developed severe diarrhea with 100% mortality. In addition, viral RNA was detected in rectal swabs and multiple tissues, including the intestinal tract and brain, with macroscopic/microscopic intestinal lesions and viral antigen distribution confirmed using histopathology and immunohistochemistry. These findings demonstrate the presence of a pathogenic PEDV strain in Chongqing, China, capable of causing severe neonatal piglets’ enteric disease.

Keywords
Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus
Isolation and identification
Pathogenicity
Newborn piglets
China
Funding
This work was supported by the grant from the “Special Support Plan” of Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural-Youth top talent project (#NYQN2024001) and the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (#2022B1111030001).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Microbes & Immunity, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2883 Print ISSN: 3041-0886, Published by AccScience Publishing
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