Vet. Res. 38 (2007) 741-753
DOI: 10.1051/vetres:2007030

Pig Major Acute-Phase Protein and apolipoprotein A-I responses correlate with the clinical course of experimentally induced African Swine Fever and Aujeszky's disease

Rakel Carpintero^a, Covadonga Alonso^b, Matilde Piñeiro^a, María Iturralde^a, Marta Andrés^a, Marie-Frédérique Le Potier^c, Francois Madec^c, María Á. Álava^a, Andrés Piñeiro^a and Fermín Lampreave<sup>a

a</sup>  Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y Celular, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
^b  Departamento de Biotecnología, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), Ctra La Coruña Km 7, 28040 Madrid, Spain
^c  French Agency for Food Safety, BP 53, Zoopôles les Croix, 22440 Ploufragan, France

(Received 13 September 2006; accepted 17 April 2007; published online 19 July 2007)

Abstract - In the present work, we studied the acute phase protein response after experimental virus infection in pigs. The animals were experimentally infected with African Swine Fever (ASF) or Aujeszky's disease (AD) viruses. The clinical course of ASF infection correlated with increasingly high levels of pig Major Acute-phase Protein (pig-MAP) (mean value of 6 mg/mL on day 6 post infection (p.i.), from 6 to 9 times higher than day 0) and sharp apolipoprotein A-I (apo A-I) decrease (mean value of 0.5 mg/mL, from 4 to 10 times lower than day 0 on day 4 p.i.). AD-clinical signs appeared at day 3 p.i., both in vaccinated (moderate clinical signs) and non-vaccinated pigs (severe outcome within 48 h p.i.). Pig-MAP and apo A-I profiles also followed clinical signs (changing from 0.70 mg/mL to around 3 mg/mL and from around 3 mg/mL to 0.96 mg/mL, respectively in non-vaccinated animals), with minor changes in concentration in the vaccinated group. Haptoglobin levels significantly increased in ASF and AD infected animals (mean maximum values of 2.77 and 3.96 mg/mL, respectively). Minor differences for the C-Reactive Protein in the case of ASF were observed, whereas its concentration increased more than 7 times in AD-infection. The albumin level was not modified in either case. The correlation of clinical signs to our data suggests the potential use of pig-MAP and apo A-I in monitoring infections in swine.

Key words: pig-MAP / apo A-I / African Swine Fever / Aujeszky's disease / pig

Corresponding author: malava@unizar.es

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2007