Identification of antigenic variants of the porcine rubulavirus in sera of field swine and their seroprevalence.

We sampled sera from 1013 non-vaccinated swine from four states in Mexico, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán and the Estado de Mexico, to analyse anti-porcine rubulavirus antibody titres against three different porcine rubulavirus isolates (PAC-4/1993, PAC-6/2001, and PAC-9/2003) using a hemagglutination inhibition assay. The results revealed that there were antigenic differences among the isolates assessed. In particular, the estimated correlation between the PAC-4/1993 and PAC-6/2001 (0.50) isolates and between the PAC-4/1993 and PAC-9/2003 isolates (0.56) displayed a moderate positive correlation. In contrast, there was a strong positive correlation between the PAC-6/2001 and PAC-9/2003 isolates (0.73). We also found that in the state of Guanajuato, PAC-4/1993 was the isolate that was most frequently identified; in Jalisco, the isolate was PAC-6/2001; and in Michoacán, the isolate was PAC-9/2003. By contrast, in the Estado de Mexico, all three isolates appeared to circulate with a low seroprevalence. In general, the analysed sera from the four states displayed a porcine rubulavirus serological prevalence ranging from 9% to 23.7%. These data indicate that there is not complete antibody cross-antigenicity among the three isolates, and the antigenic variations in the antibody response found in this study implies that the use of a monovalent vaccine would not generate complete protection against the different antigenic subtypes.