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A highly virulent canine distemper virus strain isolated from vaccinated mink in China

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Abstract

An outbreak of canine distemper in 2017 in mink breeding farms (Shandong province, China) caused severe pneumonia, hardened footpads, and death in more than 5000 vaccinated animals. Sequencing of the hemagglutinin and fusion protein genes from the WH2 canine distemper virus (CDV) strain we isolated from the infected minks were clustered into the recently isolated CDV Asia-1 genotype group. The WH2 strain was distinct from the current vaccine strains, containing a novel potential N-glycosylation site in its hemagglutinin protein. It also contained amino acid mutations in the fusion protein gene (I87N, T110P and L386I), and the T110P mutation results in N-glycosylation site silencing. WH2 was highly virulent in both unvaccinated and vaccinated animals in our pathogenesis experiments. Immunohistochemistry results revealed positive staining of different organs in unvaccinated and vaccinated animals. The serum in vitro neutralizing antibody titers for the vaccinated mink group and a dog were higher for the WH2 strain than those of the HNly150520B strain (isolated from a dog). These findings indicate that the current commercial vaccines provide incomplete protection against WH2 challenge infections. Thus, a new vaccine strain is urgently needed to protect against variant CDV strains.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Special Project of Industrial Cluster in Self-created Zone in Zhengzhou, Luoyang, and Xinxiang Cities (181200211700).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Center for Veterinary Medicine, No.3 Cuiwei Road, High-Tech District, Luoyang, Henan, 471003, PR China

    Yuxiu Liu, Caihong Liu, Hangtian Ding, Yujiao Cao, Zhe Sun, Hongchao Wu, Lingxiao Wang, Wenxi He, Baicheng Huang, Xiangfeng Xi & Kegong Tian

  2. College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China

    Yuxiu Liu & Kegong Tian

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  1. Yuxiu Liu
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  2. Caihong Liu
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Correspondence to Xiangfeng Xi or Kegong Tian.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of National Research Center for Veterinary Medicine (Permit 20180310024). Dormicum and domitor were used in all surgery and all the mink were euthanized followed by exsanguination at the end of the experiment.

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Liu, Y., Liu, C., Ding, H. et al. A highly virulent canine distemper virus strain isolated from vaccinated mink in China. Virus Genes 57, 266–275 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-021-01837-w

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