title: Experimental infection of Bama miniature pigs with a highly virulent classical swine fever virus.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Currently, larger domestic pigs are only animals widely used in vaccine evaluation and pathogenicity study of classical swine fever virus (CSFV). This study was aimed to create an alternative animal experimental infection model of CSFV.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty specific-pathogen-free Bama miniature pigs were randomly divided into two groups and rooms, infected and non-infected, and the pigs in the infected group were inoculated intramuscularly with 104, 105 or 106 TCID50 (median tissue culture infective dose) CSFV Shimen strain (n = 5 × 3) or left uninoculated to serve as in-contact pigs (n = 3). The uninfected control pigs (n = 2) were housed in a separate room. Clinical signs, body temperature, viraemia, tissue antigen distribution, pathological changes and seroconversion were monitored. Clinical signs were observed as early as 2 days post-inoculation (dpi) in all infected pigs (though mild in contact pigs), but not non-infected control pigs. All inoculated pigs showed viraemia by 6 dpi. The in-contact pigs showed lower levels of viraemia. At 10 dpi, seroconversion was noted in five of the 15 inoculated pigs. All inoculated or one in-contact pigs died by 15 dpi.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results show that Bama miniature pigs support productive CSFV infection and display clinical signs and pathological changes consistent with CSFV infections observed in larger domestic pigs.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin 150001, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Da-Yong
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Huan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Qiu-Ying
authors.initials: QY
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Chang-De
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Si
authors.forename: Shou-Ping
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Zhuo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lian-Dong
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.forename: Hua-Ji
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology; D002460:Cell Line; D006691:Classical Swine Fever / Q000276:immunology / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000821:virology*; D006692:Classical Swine Fever Virus / Q000472:pathogenicity* / Q000502:physiology; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D007273:Injections, Intramuscular; D023421:Models, Animal; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015996:Survival Rate; D013552:Swine; D013556:Swine, Miniature; D014765:Viral Vaccines / Q000276:immunology; D014766:Viremia / Q000276:immunology / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000821:virology*
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D014765:Viral Vaccines