Immortalized porcine mesangial cell line competent for the cultivation of Japanese encephalitis virus.

Abstract

Importance: The Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is a massive threat to the pig-raising industry and attenuated-live vaccines are used widely to prevent JEV infections. Primary hamster kidney cells and Vero cells are mainly used to propagate JEV-attenuated vaccines.

Objective: This study aimed to construct porcine mesangial cells (PMCs) for JEV cultivation and study its characteristics.

Methods: An immunofluorescence assay was used to analyze the homogeneity of PMCs. Karyotypic analysis and flow cytometry were used to detect the cell chromosome numbers and cell cycle, respectively. TCID₅₀ was used to measure the viral titers.

Results: The prepared PMCs were uniform in shape and without variation in chromosome numbers. The PMCs exhibit strong division and proliferation ability, and the JEV could replicate efficiently, having a similar cytopathic effect to that in Vero cells. The viral titer results showed that the JEV grows faster in PMCs than in Vero cells.

Conclusions and relevance: This study generated an immortalized PMC cell line suitable for cultivating the JEV, which has significance for producing pig JEV-attenuated vaccines.