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Sera collected from European wild boar (Sus scrofa) shot in Eastern Germany between January 1991 and December 1994 were tested for antibodies to pseudorabies virus (PRV). Of 3,143 sera tested, 281 (8.9%) and 13 (0.4%) were positive and suspect in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively. The specificity of the reactions was confirmed by detection of neutralizing antibodies in 220 sera (74.8%) and by immunoblotting. Analysis of host age and sex of the animals, temporal and spatial factors showed significantly higher seroprevalences in older animals than in younger individuals, but no differences between males and females. Pseudorabies virus infections have been endemic in this wild boar population for several years and the extreme eastern part of the study area had significantly higher seroprevalences (< or = 22%) than other areas. In the area covered by this study, pseudorabies virus was eradicated in the domestic animal populations in 1985. Thus, the infections in the wild boar population appear to be endemic and persist completely separately and without affecting the domestic pig population.

Article summary line: Phylogenetic and epidemiologic evidence shows incursion of HPAIV into the food chain.

European wild boars are susceptible to transmission of PrV infection from domestic pigs and vice-versa. The PrV isolate BFW1 is of low virulence and seems to be adapted to the wild boar population from which it was isolated.

M.L.B. and F.B. contributed equally to this work. Mycobacterium bovis is the etiologic agent of bovine tuberculosis, a chronic infectious disease, affecting livestock, wild animals, and sometimes humans. We report the draft genome sequence of a Mycobacterium bovis strain isolated from wild boar of spoli-gotype SB0120 (or BCG-like) also present in wildlife-livestock multi-host systems. M ycobacterium bovis is the causal agent of bovine tuberculosis (BT), a chronic infectious disease, affecting domestic animal species like cattle, wild animals, and sometimes human beings (1-4). France is an officially BT-free EU member, although every year several outbreaks occur in a few regions of the country (5). The description of the population of M. bovis circulating in France for the last 35 years highlighted that strains of spoligotype SB0120 (or BCG-like), comprising up to 53 different MIRU-VNTR genotypes (4, 6), are the most common. These genotypes of strains are widespread all over the country but, in the last 10 years, a few specific MLVA-profiles seem to spread in particular regions (7). In Dordogne (southwest of France), the main M. bovis strain isolated from infected animals is SB0120MLVA 5 3 5 3 9 4 5 6. This strain is present in wildlife-livestock multi-host systems, including wild boar, badgers, roe deer, and cattle (7, 8). We performed whole-genome sequencing of M. bovis in order to improve the knowledge of the genetic determinants involved in modulation of virulence, spread in multi-host systems and persistence over time. The strain SB0120MLVA 5 3 5 3 9 4 5 6 was isolated in Dordogne in 2010 from mandibular lymph nodes of a wild boar as described before (7). The isolate was grown in 10 mL of Middlebrook 7H9 liquid media (Becton-Dickinson, France) supplemented with 10% OADC (oleic albumin dextrose catalase) for 4 weeks. Bacteria were thermalized for 1 h at 80°C and chromosomal DNA was extracted by phenol-chloroform method. DNA sequencing was performed at Genoscreen (Lille, France) on an Illumina HiSeq 2500 (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA), to get 2 100 paired-ends sequences for an average coverage of 80. Sequencing produced 1,929,897 paired-ends reads of 100 bp and 1,844,142 reads after filtering with sickle version 1.33 (9). We performed an alignment between filtered reads and the M. bovis AF2122/97 strain as reference using bowtie2 version 2.2.6 (10). The alignment gave us 3,670,788 reads mapped on the reference corresponding to 97.28% coverage. We then performed de novo assembly using Spades version 3.9.0 (2) on trimmed sequences with a k-mer size of 55. We obtained 135 contigs (the largest one being 205,553 bp) for a total length of 4,295,676 bp (using only contigs larger than 500 bp), a GC content of 65.55%, and an N 50 of 72,210 bp (QUAST version 4.2 [11]). Annotation was performed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline (12) which predicted 3,842 coding DNA sequences (CDS) for 4,073 total genes, 45 tRNAs, and 180 pseudo-genes. Accession number(s). T...

The aim of the studies was to fathom the duration and the role of maternal immunity for Aujeszky's disease (AD) and classical swine fever (CSF) in wild boar offspring. In one experiment, two wild boar sows were infected with a low pathogenic pseudorabies virus (PRV) in 1999. A total of 51 offspring was born between 1999 and 2002 and was monitored for PRV maternal antibodies. In a second experiment, the maternal immunity for CSF was analysed. Therefore, a sow was orally vaccinated against CSF using vaccine baits containing the live-attenuated C-strain vaccine. The vaccination took place in January 1999. The sow gave birth to four piglets in 2001 and to two piglets in 2002. With respect to maternal immunity for AD, some piglets reacted positive in the ELISA up to 27-week post-partum while in the neutralization test antibodies were detected up to 15-week post-partum. The calculated half-life of neutralizing antibodies was 21 days. Regarding CSF, the neutralization titres of maternal antibodies dropped continuously reaching values of < or =10 ND50 20-week post-partum. After the 12th week post-partum, most of the sera reacted negative in the ELISA. However, after the third month, low levels of neutralization titres were still detectable. The results are discussed with respect to the epidemiology and control of both diseases in wild boar populations.

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