Research Advances in African Swine Fever Virus (minireview)

African swine fever remains one of most economically threatened diseases that has been hurting to the swine industry in Ukraine since 2014 and in China since 2018. African swine fever is an acute, highly lethal infectious disease caused by African swine fever virus, which has occurred and spread in many countries around the world, causing a catastrophic blow to the swine industry in the affected countries. ASFV is characterized of large genome, encoding 150-200 proteins, including variety of immunoregulatory proteins, which can resist immunity. African swine fever virus mainly enters pigs through the respiratory and digestive tract. The target cells infected are mainly mononuclear-macrophages, and the receptor is still unclear. Research on the development of diagnostic techniques and tests related to African swine fever are continuing and their proper using is crucial. There are many studies on African swine fever virus vaccines, including inactivated vaccines, attenuated vaccines, subunit vaccines and genetic vaccines. But so far these vaccines have not been able to protect domestic pigs from African swine fever virus infection. The article mainly reviews the researches of ASF virus, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostic techniques and attempts to vaccine`s develop, that provides theoretical basis for the prevention and control of ASF.