Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a Coronavirus infecting swine and causing acute diarrhea in all age groups. PEDV was first identified in Western Europe in the 1970s and then spread to other European countries and Asia. Since 2010 highly virulent variant did emerge in South East China causing severe outbreaks.

In the Americas PEDV was identified in the USA in May 2013 and has since been confirmed in at least 30 states, causing high mortality in young piglets. Moreover PED outbreaks have also been reported recently in Mexico, Canada, Dominican Republic, Peru and Colombia.

Our Kernel lab has developed an ELISA for detecting PEDV antibodies in swine serum samples. The test is using a recombinant PEDV nucleoprotein (NP) as antigen. Contrary to the spike protein (S) the NP is well conserved among the different PEDV strains (clusters). Moreover a NP-based ELISA should be able to differentiate infected animals from those vaccinated with recombinant S-based vaccines.