Survival patterns of Streptococcus suis seroptypes 1 and 14 in porcine blood indicate cross-reactive bactericidal antibodies in naturally infected pigs

Streptococcus suis serotype (cps) 1 and cps14 have been detected in association with severe diseases such as meningitis and polyarthritis in pigs. Though these two cps are very similar, only cps14 is an important zoonotic agent in Asia and only cps1 is described to be associated with diseases in suckling piglets rather than weaning piglets. The main objective of this study was to assess restriction of survival of cps14 and cps1 in porcine blood by IgG and IgM putatively cross-reacting with these two cps. Furthermore, we differentiate recent European cps1/14 strains by agglutination, cpsK sequencing, MLST and virulence-associated gene profiling. Our data confirmed cps1 of clonal complex 1 as an important pathotype causing polyarthritis in suckling piglets in Europe. The experimental design included also bactericidal assays with blood samples drawn at different ages of piglets naturally infected with different S. suis cps types including cps1 but not cps14. We report survival of a cps1 and a cps14 strain (both of sequence type 1) in blood of suckling piglets with high levels of maternal IgG binding to the bacterial surface. In contrast, killing of cps1 and cps14 was recorded in older piglets due to an increase of IgM as demonstrated by specific cleavage of IgM. Heterologous absorption of antibodies with cps1 or cps14 is sufficient to significantly increase the survival of the other cps. In conclusion, IgM elicited by natural S. suis infection is crucial for killing of S. suis cps1 and cps14 in older weaning piglets and has most likely the potential to cross-react between cps1 and cps14.