Unfortunately, at present the answer is ABSOLUTELY NEGATIVE.
It is not possible to predict the level of protection that a given field strain or vaccine will afford against an infection with a new strain.
As it has been discussed, the virus variability is extreme in many aspects (see section What is the PRRS virus?). Also, significant gaps still exist in PRRS virus immunology, such as the exact identification of NA and T cell epitopes that may induce a protective response (see Immunology against PRRS).
For instance, when GP3, GP4 and GP5 are sequenced, no correlation exists between the neutralisation of the isolates and 1) the sequence of neutralising epitopes already described, and 2) the number of N-linked glycosylation sites in different proteins.
It is a proven fact that if a given strain induces high levels of NAs and/or cell-mediated immunity the chance of protection may be higher; however, it should be also considered that we are dealing with probabilities.
Can we use genome sequences to predict the level of protection among strains?
When sequences from different strains are compared (only GP5, or all structural proteins or even the whole genome), it has been demonstrated that the protection afforded by a given vaccine or a given field strain against another strain cannot be simply predicted by an overview of the genetic identity.
Genetic identity is not a good predictor of the degree of protective immunity conferred by a vaccine.
Factors that may influence protection against re-infection:
- The specific ability of the virus used in the immunisation to induce NAs or IFN-γ-SC and to modulate immune response.
- The hardness neutralising the virus responsible for the re-infection. The specific ability of the virus responsible for the re-infection to modulate immune response.
- Other: period since the vaccination (remembering that the development of immunity against PRRS virus is slow), infection pressure, etc.
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