In addition, a variant Chinese PEDV field strain (FL2013) was isolated from a sow with mild clinical signs and with reduced virulence in her 3-day-old neonatal piglets . The backbone of the FL2013 genome was identical to other highly virulent PEDV strains (Fig. 1) . However, the extreme C-terminus of the FL2013S gene has a unique 21 nt-deletion, leading to a 7 aa-deletion (FEKVHVQ) in comparison with other highly virulent PEDV sequences . The same 7 aa-deletion is also observed in the classical PEDV CHN/LZC/before 2006 strain.