{"doi":"10.3390/vetsci12020181","title":"Utilizing NF-κB Signaling in Porcine Epithelial Cells to Identify a Plant-Based Additive for the Development of a Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Vaccine","abstract":"The nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway plays a crucial role in regulating immune responses in epithelial cells. In this study, we established a porcine epithelial NF-κB reporter cell line (PK15-KBR) as an in vitro platform to screen plant-based extracts for their potential use as vaccine adjuvants against porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). The NF-κB inducers were further tested for toxicity assessments, either using CCK-8 assays or intramuscular injection in mice, finally followed by vaccination studies to evaluate their adjuvancy. Initial experiments confirmed that TNF-α effectively activated NF-κB signaling in PK15-KBR cells in a dose-dependent manner, validating the platform’s reliability at Z’ value of 0.68. Of the 224 testers, 3 candidates, including chamomile, mulberry and Boerhaavia diffusa, showed induction activity; however, only chamomile induced a dose-dependent response in PK15-KBR cells. As a proof of concept, chamomile, used as an adjuvant in oral vaccination, demonstrated significantly higher IgG levels at an early stage (day 14, p < 0.05) and enhanced IgA titers. These findings highlight the use of the PK15-KBR cell line in identifying mucosal adjuvants and position chamomile extract as a promising candidate for enhancing vaccine-induced immunity.","journal":"Veterinary Sciences","year":2025,"id":562249,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9599,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1464608,"name":"Haroon Afzal","orcid":"0000-0002-5256-3265","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1464609,"name":"Thu-Dung Doan","orcid":"0000-0001-8455-1210","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1464610,"name":"Asad Murtaza","orcid":"0000-0003-2804-9976","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1464611,"name":"Chia‐Hung Yen","orcid":"0000-0002-6939-5528","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1464612,"name":"Yao-Chi Chung","orcid":"0009-0006-0610-2843","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1464607,"name":"Nguyen-Thanh Hoa","orcid":"0000-0002-9675-5437","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":33,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:05.550545Z","pmid":"40005942","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}