An alternative strategy for studying emerging atypical porcine pestivirus

Atypical Porcine Pestivirus (APPV) is an emerging agent that belongs to the genus Pestivirus of the family Flaviviridae and causes Congenital Tremor (CT) in newborn piglets. Piglets with CT are mainly characterized by rhythmic tremor in the limbs and head, complicated by ataxia. Affected animals often die due to insufficient sucking with a mortality rate of 10%-30%. Histopathological findings of such piglets are mainly characterized by increased vacuoles in the white matter of the cerebellum, hypomyelination of the spinal cord, and microglial proliferation. APPV has been widely spread around the world since it was first reported in 2015, bringing huge economic losses to the pig industry. However, as a newly discovered virus, no vaccine is currently available to prevent and control APPV infection. In addition, the difficulties in APPV isolation and its high genetic variability severely hamper the development of APPV vaccines. Here, we propose an alternative strategy, the reverse genetics system, may be a prospective platform to address the issues with APPV vaccine design.