The Genetics of Life and Death: Virus-Host Interactions Underpinning Resistance to African Swine Fever, a Viral Hemorrhagic Disease

Conclusion and Future Perspectives The mechanisms which result in reduced viral replication and lack of disease in African wild suids after ASFV infection are largely unknown. The data so far indicate that this is not due to an intrinsic difference in the ability of the virus to replicate in macrophages from these hosts. A more likely explanation is that the innate immune system of these hosts is better able to control virus replication resulting in a reduced systemic infection and reduced pathogenesis. This may involve a balance between virus and host factors which has evolved over long term infections of these hosts. Sequence information from African wild suids will enable further investigation of the interaction of ASFV with components of the innate immune system compared to domestic pigs and wild boar. A better understanding of ASFV mechanisms of evading host defenses will contribute to this. Of special interest are the functions of the many members of five MGF encoded by ASFV. As is the case in other viruses these may have evolved in the virus genome to modulate the host’s innate immune response. Genetic modification has been used to generate pigs resistant to porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus (Whitworth et al., 2016; Burkard et al., 2018) or classical swine fever virus (Xie et al., 2018) and therefore could be a viable route to increase resistance to ASFV. Identified warthog or bushpig sequences could be engineered into the pig genome to gener...
Source: Frontiers in Genetics - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Source Type: research