Molecular Characterization of the Spike and ORF3 Genes of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus in the Philippines

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a highly contagious enteric pathogen of swine. In the present study, we analyzed the spike genes and ORF3 genes of seven PEDV strains detected in Philippine pigs in June 2014. There are four major epitope regions in the spike glycoprotein: a CO-26K equivalent (COE) domain, SS2 and SS6 epitopes, and an epitope region recognized by the 2C10 monoclonal antibody. Analysis of Philippine strains revealed amino acid substitutions in the SS6 epitope region (LQDGQVKI to SQSGQVKI) of the S1 domain. Substitutions were also detected in the 2C10 epitope region (GPRLQPY to GPRFQPY) in the cytoplasmic domain. Phylogenetic analysis of the complete spike gene sequences from the seven strains revealed that they clustered within the G2 group but were distantly related to the North American and INDELs clusters. Interestingly, these strains were close to Vietnamese PEDVs on the ORF3 genetic tree and showed high (97.0-97.6 %) sequence identity to ORF3 genes at the nucleotide level.