Identification and genomic characterization of emerging goose astrovirus in central China, 2020

Abstract

Summary Astroviruses are a non‐enveloped virus with large host range breadth. AstV‐associated gastroenteritis in human and animal, nephritis in chicken, gout in gosling and hepatitis in duckling pose great threats to public health and poultry industry. Since early 2020, continuous emergence of fatal goose astrovirus (GAstV) infections characterized by articular and visceral gout was reported in China. Here, we described two outbreaks of emerging gout disease in two different goose farms of central China. Two virulent GAstV strains, designated as HNKF‐1/China/2020 and HNSQ‐6/China/2020, were isolated, and the fifth passage of the isolates could cause urate crystals accumulated in the allantoic fluid and even deposited around great vessels and embryo bodies. Meanwhile, the source of these GAstV outbreaks was tracked to goose hatcheries. The prevalence of GAstV in the goose embryos with hatch failure was confirmed, and embryo‐origin HNXX‐6/China/2020 was further isolated. The complete genome of these three newly isolates was then sequenced and analysed. The results showed that Chinese GAstVs have formed two distinct groups, and the three GAstV isolates, as well as most of the Chinese GAstVs, belong to the G‐I group. There are several amino acid mutations in the three newly identified GAstVs, such as A520T, S535R, V555I and A782T in ORF1a and Q229P in ORF2, suggesting the field stains, HNKF‐1/China/2020 and HNSQ‐6/China/2020, might derive from the weak goose embryo via vertical transmission. Moreover, the phylogenetic analysis of the complete viral genome and individual viral proteins revealed that Chinese GAstV strains have been constantly evolving towards more complicated and various directions. Our study reported the recently emerging GAstV outbreaks in central China, and further analysed the genetic characteristics of three virulent G‐I GAstV isolates from commercial goose farms and goose hatchery, indicating the diverse transmission of the virus and providing a basis for developing effective preventive measures and control strategies.

Extensive genetic heterogeneity and molecular characteristics of emerging astroviruses causing fatal gout in goslings

“…The goslings were collected from 14 goose farms in Hubei, Henan, Jiangsu, and Anhui provinces from January 2020 to October 2021. Spleen, liver, and kidney samples from the same bird were pooled for the detection of GoAstV, goose parvovirus ( GPV ), reovirus ( REOV ), goose hemorrhagic polyomavirus ( GHPV ), and Tembusu virus ( TMUV ) using PCR or RT-PCR analysis following previously reported methods ( Chen et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ). The primers used for the initial virus screening are listed in Supplementary Table 1 .…”

Insight into the Epidemiology and Evolutionary History of Novel Goose Astrovirus-Associated Gout in Goslings in Southern China

“…Niu et al reported that the infection rate of the GoAstV in clinical samples collected from six provinces in North China was 81.5% [9]. In addition, the epidemiology of the GoAstV in goslings have been conducted by several study groups in different regions, and the results showed that the GoAstV infections in goslings are widespread [23][24][25]. In the present study, the epidemiology of the GoAstV in goslings in southern China was examined, and the results showed that the GoAstV is also prevalent in goslings in southern China.…”

Complete Genome Sequence and Phylogenetic Analysis of a Goose Astrovirus Isolate in China

“…Zhang [26]. Particularly, ORF1a and ORF1b were closely associated with TAstV-2 and DAstV-3, while ORF2 was closely associated with TAstV-2 and DAstV-1.…”

“…Although great efforts have been made to classi ed AAstVs according to the host of origin and the amino acid sequences of viral capsid protein( https://talk.ictvonline.org/ ), a lot of newly reported viruses have not yet been classi ed o cially, such as duck astrovirus CPH [5] and YP2, astroviruses of chicken-orign [6] and goose-origin [7,8]. Emerging infectious disease of goslings broke out in many provinces of China since 2017, such as Shandong, Anhui, Guangdong, and Henan [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The clinical symptoms of infected goslings include gout and visceral hemorrhage and the pathogen of this disease was nally con rmed to be a new type of goose astrovirus(GAstV) [16].…”

“…ORF1a and ORF1b encode non-structural proteins, which are responsible for the transcription and replication of the virus, and ORF2 encodes capsid protein [19][20][21][22]. ORF1b appeared to be the most conserved region, indicating that RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), encoded by ORF1b, might be the most vital element for astrovirus replication [11] .…”