Effects of the HN Antigenic Difference between the Vaccine Strain and the Challenge Strain of Newcastle Disease Virus on Virus Shedding and Transmission

Newcastle disease (ND) leading to heavy economic losses to the poultry industry worldwide is caused by Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Even though intensive vaccination programs have been implemented in many countries, virulent NDV can still be frequently isolated in well-vaccinated flocks. We compared the protection efficiency of LaSota and two sub-genotype VIId vaccines, NDV/AI4 and NDV O/AI4, in which NDV O/AI4 was constructed by replacing the hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) gene of the vaccine strain NDV/AI4 with that from the variant NDV strain JS-14-12-Ch by the cross hemagglutination inhibition test and immune protection test. The number of birds shedding the virus and the titer of the shedding virus from the challenged birds were tested to evaluate the protection efficiency in the immune protection test. The cross hemagglutination inhibition and neutralization tests between JS-14-12-Ch and the three vaccines displayed a significant antigenic difference between JS-14-12-Ch and LaSota or NDV/AI4, but not between JS-14-12-Ch and NDV O/AI4. The results of the immune protection test showed that NDV O/AI4 could provide improved protection as determined by a significant decrease in both the number of birds shedding the virus and the titer of the shedding virus from the challenged birds. The results in this study indicated that the antigenic similarity between the vaccine strain and the challenge strain is important in reducing the shedding of virulent virus in which the congruence of the NDV HN protein may play a critical role.