All the serum samples were collected, stored, and handled in the same way. They were obtained for each piglet by storing two mL of whole blood without anticoagulants at room temperature (RT) for 4 h followed by centrifugation at 3,500 rpm for 4 min. As suggested in a previous work [20] , an abundant quantity of hemoglobin in the serum can hide early diagnostic biomarkers of PRRSV by competing with the other serum components for the binding site of the chromatographic surfaces. To avoid the consequent signal suppression of the medium-low abundant proteins, only non-hemolytic samples were included in the present study.