Pathogenicity and cross-reactive immune responses of a historical and a contemporary Senecavirus A strains in pigs

The goals of this study were to compare the pathogenicity and infection dynamics of a historical and a contemporary SVA strains (SVV 001 and SD15-26) and to assess cross-neutralizing and cross-reactive T cell responses following experimental infection in pigs. Both SVA strains successfully infected all inoculated animals, resulting in viremia and robust antibody and cellular immune responses. SVA SD15-26 infection resulted in characteristic clinical signs and vesicular lesions, however, SVA SVV 001 did not cause overt clinical disease with inoculated animals remaining clinically normal during the experiment. Notably, neutralization- and -recall IFN-γ expression-assays revealed marked cross-neutralizing antibody and cross-reactive T cell responses between the two viral strains. Together these results demonstrate that the historical SVA SVV 001 strain presents low virulence in pigs when compared to the contemporary SVA SD15-26 strain. Additionally, immunological assays indicate that SVA SVV 001 and SD15-26 are antigenically related and share conserved antigenic determinants.