The Prevalence and Genetic Diversity of PCV3 and PCV2 in Colombia and PCV4 Survey during 2015–2016 and 2018–2019

Abstract

Four genotypes of circovirus have been recognized in swine, with PCV2 and PCV3 being the most associated with clinical manifestations, while PCV4 does not have a defined disease. In addition, PCV2 is associated with different syndromes grouped as diseases associated with porcine circovirus (PCVAD), while PCV3 causes systemic and reproductive diseases. In the present study, we retrospectively detected PCV2, PCV3, and PCV4 in Colombia during two periods: A (2015–2016) and B (2018–2019). During period A, we evaluated stool pools from the 32 Colombian provinces, finding a higher prevalence of PCV3 compared to PCV2 as well as PCV2/PCV3 co-infection. Furthermore, we determined that PCV3 had been circulating since 2015 in Colombia. Regarding period B, we evaluated sera pools and tissues from abortions and stillborn piglets from the five provinces with the highest pig production. The highest prevalence found was for PCV3 in tissues followed by sera pools, while PCV2 was lower and only in sera pools. In addition, PCV2/PCV3 co-infection in sera pools was also found for this period. The complete genome sequences of PCV3 and PCV3-ORF2 placed the Colombian isolates within clade 1 as the majority in the world. For PCV2, the predominant genotype currently in Colombia is PCV2d. Likewise, in some PCV3-ORF2 sequences, a mutation (A24V) was found at the level of the Cap protein, which could be involved in PCV3 immunogenic recognition. Regarding PCV4, retrospective surveillance showed that there is no evidence of the presence of this virus in Colombia.

Prevalence of infectious reproductive diseases in sows from Tolima-Colombia

“…On the other hand, a prevalence of 97% has been reported in Brazil [12]. In Colombia, a prevalence of 43.5% was demonstrated in groups of sera and 52.6% in tissues that showed genetic material of the virus [13]. These results are considerably higher than those reported in the present study, where a prevalence of 2.6% was established in the department of Tolima.…”

First molecular detection and genetic analysis of porcine circovirus 4 in the Southwest of China during 2021–2022

“…Since then, the genome of PCV4 has been identified in several provinces of China, including Jiangsu, Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Guangxi, and Inner Mongolia (Zhang D. et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2021;Ha et al, 2021;Tian et al, 2021). Moreover, PCV4 DNA was also detected in Korea but not in Spain, Italy, and Colombia (Franzo et al, 2020;Nguyen et al, 2022;Vargas-Bermudez et al, 2022). Niu et al (2022) have further identified that PCV4 was pathogenic to piglets.…”

Detection and Complete Genomic Analysis of Porcine circovirus 3 (PCV3) in Diarrheic Pigs from the Dominican Republic: First Report on PCV3 from the Caribbean Region

“…On the other hand, none of the tested fecal samples were positive for porcine coronaviruses or RVA. Other studies have also reported high detection rates of PCV3 in conjunction with PCV2 from diseased pigs [ 2 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Taken together, these observations warrant further investigation on the possible role/s of PCV3 in porcine co-infections, especially with PCV2.…”

“…It has been speculated that PCV3 might function synergistically with other porcine pathogens to potentiate disease severity [ 5 , 9 , 31 , 32 ]. On the other hand, co-infections might be due to the widespread occurrence of other major porcine pathogens, such as PCV2, devoid of any association with PCV3 [ 9 , 28 , 33 ]. In previous studies, we screened the 100 porcine fecal samples from the Dominican Republic for PCV2 (detection rates of 48%, 48/100 fecal samples) and porcine adenovirus (PAdV) (26%, 26/100 fecal samples) DNA, and Rotavirus-A (RVA) RNA (0%, 0/100 fecal samples) [ 21 , 34 ].…”