Unravelling some mysteries of porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus (PRRSV) infections: new insights from modelling studies

Extract

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is an endemic pig disease in most European countries, causing respiratory distress, fever and growth reductions in growing pigs and increased litter mortality in sows. The disease is characterised by exceptionally long-term viral persistence within the host, a weak innate host immune response and delayed adaptive host immune response, and large between animal variation in the immune response (Murtaugh et al., 2004). Although numerous in-vitro and in-vivo studies produced valid insight into the fine details of the virus dynamics and its interaction with the host’s immune response, several fundamental questions concerning the role of diverse immune components and host genetics remain unanswered. In this study mathematical models were developed to investigate the role of diverse processes caused by the virus or the immune response on the infection characteristics.