A New Neutralization Epitope in the Spike Protein of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus

Abstract

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) infects piglets and causes serious diarrhea as well as vomiting, dehydration, and death. The trimeric S protein plays a crucial role in the induction of neutralizing antibodies, and many neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against PEDV S protein have been developed. However, these mAbs exclusively target the S1 protein. In this study, we obtained a neutralizing mAb, 5F7, against the S2 protein of PEDV, and this mAb could neutralize new variant genotype 2 PEDV strains (LNCT2), as well as a genotype 1 PEDV strain (CV777), in vitro. The core sequence of the epitope was found in amino acid sequence 1261 aa~1337 aa. These findings confirm that the S2 protein possessed neutralizing epitopes and provided knowledge to aid further research on this virus.