12 Apr 2022
Researchers hope work to understand coronaviruses, and how to control and prevent their spread, will benefit both human and animal health.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Scientists at The Pirbright Institute have developed a model of pig respiratory coronavirus (PRCV) they hope will help colleagues researching COVID-19 and other diseases.
Human coronaviruses including Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are zoonotic, so any research to aid understanding of the diseases could potentially benefit both human and animal health.
Pigs are good for modelling human disease due to similarity of size and how their immune systems work, and they contract PRCV with varying symptoms and severity, as people do with COVID-19.
Pirbright hopes modelling PRCV will help to shed light on how coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 infect humans and, therefore, aid with preventive measures.
The research, published in Frontiers in Immunology, covers the factors resulting in mild or severe disease in pigs, potentially helping with the development of new control strategies for emerging livestock and human coronaviruses. Little is currently known about how severity varies and how the immune system fights back.
Four strains of PRCV were investigated in the study, showing viruses replicating in the lungs caused more severe disease. Scientists also discovered virus strains multiplied in the upper respiratory tract and nose, as seen with SARS-CoV-2.
The strains causing severe disease also multiplied in organ cultures, and these findings will aid understanding of how viruses enter cells and replicate, and how some immune cells respond.
Elma Tchilian, head of the mucosal immunology group at Pirbright, said: “This research is an important step to understanding coronaviruses in their natural hosts.
“By exploring disease in pigs and the mechanisms of infection, we will gain insights into pig health, which can also be applied to humans with COVID-19. This will help to improve our knowledge of COVID-19 and the most effective controls that can be put into place to slow the spread of disease.”
