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Highlights: [•] Two soluble recombinant SBV N proteins were generated. [•] MAb clone 2C8 was successfully prepared using His-SBV-N as an immunogen. [•] MBP-SBV-N was used as a coating antigen to screen mAb-secreting hybridomas in ELISA assays. [•] The epitope recognized by 2C8 is located at amino acids 51–76 of the SBV N protein. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) is an important pathogen that seriously influences the productivity of small ruminants worldwide. Although PPRV is known to induce apoptosis in infected cells, the interaction between PPRV and permissive cells requires further elucidation. Here, we provide the first evidence that PPRV infection triggered autophagy in Vero cells based on the appearance of abundant double- and single-membrane vesicles, the accumulation of LC3 fluorescent puncta, the enhancement of LC3-I/-II conversion, and autophagic flux. We further demonstrated that induction of autophagy with rapamycin significantly increased PPRV progeny yield and nucleocapsid (N) protein expression, while inhibition of autophagy with siRNA targeting ATG7 resulted in diametrically opposite results. Our data indicate that PPRV exploits the autophagy machinery to facilitate its own replication in host cells, thus the production efficiency of live attenuated PPRV vaccines may be improved by targeting the autophagic pathway. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]