Characterization of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus infectivity in human embryonic kidney cells.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), a causative agent of porcine epidemic diarrhea, causes economic loss in the global swine industry. Vero cell, an African green monkey kidney cell line, has been commonly used to isolate and propagate PEDV. However, since the production of interferon in these cells is defective, Vero cells are not the ideal cell type to study the molecular mechanisms of PEDV infection and the host antiviral innate immune response. In this study, we observed that human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells were susceptible to infection with PEDV vaccine strain CV777 (G1 subtype) and field isolate LNCT2 (G2 subtype). The one-step growth curve showed that the growth dynamics of PEDV in HEK293 cells was similar to that observed in Vero cells. Furthermore, we revealed that aminopeptidase N was involved in PEDV infection in HEK293 cells. Taken together, our findings suggest that HEK293 cells can be efficiently infected by PEDV, which might provide a useful tool for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of PEDV infection in vitro.