Discovery of a novel putative atypical porcine pestivirus in pigs in the USA

Pestiviruses are some of the most significant pathogens affecting ruminants and swine, Here, we assembled a 11 276 bp contig encoding a predicted 3635 aa polyprotein from porcine serum with 68 % pairwise identity to that of a recently partially characterized Rhinolophus affinis pestivirus (RaPV) and approximately 25–28 % pairwise identity to those of other pestiviruses, The virus was provisionally named atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV), Metagenomic sequencing of 182 serum samples identified four additional APPV-positive samples, Positive samples originated from five states and ELISAs using recombinant APPV Erns found cross-reactive antibodies in 94% of a collection of porcine serum samples, suggesting widespread distribution of APPV in the US swine herd, The molecular and serological results suggest that APPV is a novel, highly divergent porcine pestivirus widely distributed in US pigs.