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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Virology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1547670

Seroprevalence of Getah Virus in Pigs in Southeast China Determined with a Recombinant Cap Protein-based Indirect ELISA

Provisionally accepted
Jianhui Lan Jianhui Lan 1Leilei Duan Leilei Duan 1Xuya Liu Xuya Liu 1Yao Zhou Yao Zhou 1Botao Zeng Botao Zeng 1Siya Chen Siya Chen 1Yu Ye Yu Ye 1Dongyan Huang Dongyan Huang 1Gen Wan Gen Wan 1Fanfan Zhang Fanfan Zhang 2Deping Song Deping Song 1*
  • 1 Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China
  • 2 Jiangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Getah virus (GETV) is a mosquito-borne virus with a broad host range, including mosquitoes and various animals such as pigs, horses, goats, cattle, boars, and blue foxes. In pigs, GETV can cause fever, abortion and reproductive disorders in sows, as well as fever, tremors, and diarrhea in piglets, posing a serious threat to the pig production industry. However, there are few reports on the epidemiology of GETV in China, and reliable diagnostic kits for large-scale detection of GETV antibodies are lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to establish a rapid, sensitive and suitable GETV antibody detection assay for clinical detection. We expressed the recombinant protein Cap in Escherichia coli by constructing a recombinant plasmid, pET-32a-Cap, which contained a His tag and the GETV-Cap domain. The expression of the recombinant protein was achieved in the supernatant following bacterial lysis by optimizing the culture temperature and duration for Escherichia coli. The recombinant Cap protein was successfully purified via a nickel affinity column, which was used for develop an indirect ELISA method (rCap-ELISA). Following optimization of the rCap-ELISA reaction conditions, a cutoff value of 0.45 was established with 100 swine serum samples analyzed by indirect immunofluorescence (IFA). The overall coincidence rate between rCap-ELISA and IFA was 95.83%, with a 94.03% sensitivity and 100.00% specificity. IgG antibodies against GETV were subsequently detected in 2,102 serum samples from pig farms in Jiangxi and Fujian provinces via the rCap-ELISA method, and the positive rates were 63.36% (1102/1739) and 37.1% (137/363), respectively. The findings suggest that the indirect ELISA method (rCap-ELISA) is a reliable, accurate, and cost-effective way to detect IgG antibodies against GETV in pigs. This technique is valuable for understanding the dynamics of GETV transmission and for preventing GETV epidemics in pigs.

    Keywords: Getah virus, seroprevalence, IgG, ELISA, Swine

    Received: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 03 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Lan, Duan, Liu, Zhou, Zeng, Chen, Ye, Huang, Wan, Zhang and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Deping Song, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China

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