Susceptibility to mice and potential evolutionary characteristics of porcine deltacoronavirus

Abstract Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is a novel coronavirus that causes diarrhea in suckling piglets and has the potential for cross‐species transmission, posing a threat to animal and human health. However, the susceptibility profile of different species of mice to PDCoV infection and its evolutionary characteristics are still unclear. In the current study, we found that BALB/c and Kunming mice are susceptible to PDCoV. Our results showed that there were obvious lesions in intestinal and lung tissues from the infected mice. PDCoV RNAs were detected in the lung, kidney, and intestinal tissues from the infected mice of both strains, and there existed wider tissue tropism in the PDCoV‐infected BALB/c mice. The RNA and protein levels of aminopeptidase N from mice were relatively high in the kidney and intestinal tissues and obviously increased after PDCoV infection. The viral‐specific IgG and neutralizing antibodies against PDCoV were detected in the serum of infected mice. An interesting finding was that two key amino acid mutations, D138H and Q641K, in the S protein were identified in the PDCoV‐infected mice. The essential roles of these two mutations for PDCoV‐adaptive evolution were confirmed by cryo‐electron microscope structure model analysis. The evolutionary characteristics of PDCoV among Deltacoronaviruses (δ‐CoVs) were further analyzed. δ‐CoVs from multiple mammals are closely related based on the phylogenetic analysis. The codon usage analysis demonstrated that similar codon usage patterns were used by most of the mammalian δ‐CoVs at the global codon, synonymous codon, and amino acid usage levels. These results may provide more insights into the evolution, host ranges, and cross‐species potential of PDCoV.