Recently, the research article “An alternative pathway of enteric PEDV dissemination from nasal cavity to intestinal mucosa in swine” from veterinary medicine college has been published in the leading internationally academic journals Nature Communication (2017 impact factor 12.353). All the studies involved in this article were completed in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University. The First author affiliation was Nanjing Agricultural University. The first author was Li Yuchen, a PhD student of Veterinary Medicine College, and the corresponding author was Professor Yang Qian, an famous expert in mucosal immunity at Veterinary Medicine College. The study are funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
This study demonstrates an alternative pathogenic pathway of PEDV, which can cause typical pathogenic symptoms in piglets through nasal cavity inoculation. The exact mechanism by which PEDV enters the intestinal epithelium through the respiratory route has been investigated. The tropism of PEDV for NECs is responsible for virus propagation and accumulation at the rear of the nasal cavity. However, DCs may play an important role in virus entry into the nasal mucosa and transfer of the virus to T cells. Furthermore, the virus-carrying T cells could reach the intestine via the blood and lymph circulation and transfer the virus to the intestinal epithelium. This study is the first to provides evidence for nasal invasion PEDV caused intestinal disease and illustrates the mechanism of its transport from the entry site to the pathogenic site. It not only illuminates the mechanism of PEDV invasion in pigs, but also proposes a new immune method for the control methods of PED.
The research group of Professor Yang Qian has been long dedicated to research about mucosal immunity (an infectious disease prevention measure that directly cuts off the virus invasion route through oral administration and nasal spray) of pigs and poultry. The group has published one related monographMucosal Immunity and Vaccine Design(published by Science Press, and subsidized by the national sci-tech academic works publishing fund). In recent years, they have made significant progress in research about the interaction mechanism between the pig intestinal infectious disease viruses and the mucosal epithelial cells, and the related results have been respectively published in over 100 papers on international academic periodicals likeNature Communication, Mucosal Immunology, Cell Death and Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Virology（3 papers）,Frontiers In Immunology, veterinary discipline Zone I magazines (such asVeterinary Microbiology and Veterinary Research，totally 10 papers). Yang’s assistant, Associate Professor Yu Qinghua published a research paper about repairing the intestinal mucosal barrier titled “Lactobacillus accelerates ISCs regeneration to protect the integrity of intestinal mucosa through activation of STAT3 signaling pathway induced by LPLs secretion of IL-22” on the world renowned cytobiology academic periodicalCell Death and Differentiation(Impact Factor 8.339) at the beginning of this year, and the related results are included and recommended by F1000Prime.
