Identification of a Chicken Anemia Virus Variant-RelatedGyrovirusin Stray Cats in China, 2012

Abstract

The chicken anemia virus (CAV), is a known member of the genus Gyrovirus and was first isolated from chickens in Japan in 1979. Some reports have also demonstrated that CAV can be identified in human stool specimens. In this study, a variant of CAV was detected using PCR with CAV-based primers in fecal samples of stray cats. The genome of CAV variant was sequenced and the results suggest that it could be a recombinant viral strain from parental CAV strains JQ690762 and AF311900. Recombination is an important evolutionary mechanism that contributes to genetic diversification. These findings indicate that CAV variant might have originated from CAV-infected chickens. The epidemiology and pathogenesis of this novel virus remains to be elucidated. This study underscores the importance of CAV surveillance and it presents the first evidence suggesting the possibility of CAV homologous recombination in cat.

A new gyrovirus in human feces

“…Gyrovirus CAV is a very frequent chicken infection, and CAV DNA is commonly seen in human feces [9]. Gyrovirus DNA has also been reported in the feces of carnivore, possibly from the consumption of chicken or other birds [33, 34]. The detection of diverse gyrovirus DNA in human feces may reflect recent consumption of infected chicken, a frequent source of diarrhea-causing bacterial infections [35, 36], rather than active gyrovirus replication in human cells.…”

“…Gyrovirus DNA may therefore survive transit through the human gut without playing any role in this patient’s diarrhea [38, 39]. Despite the detection of gyrovirus DNA detection in human blood, on human skin, and in feces of human and carnivorous mammals [6–8, 33, 34], gyrovirus replication in non-avian species such as mammals remains to be conclusively demonstrated.…”

Assessing the efficacy of an inactivated chicken anemia virus vaccine

“…Two primers JCP1: (5 -CATCAACGGTGTTCAGGC3 ) and JCP2: (5 -CCTTGGAAGCGGATAGTCAT-3 ) were used to amplify a 535 base pair PCR product from the partial coding regions of CAV [19]. The reaction product was analyzed on 1% agarose gels and ligated into a PMD19-T vector (TaKaRa, Biotechnology, Dalian, China).…”

A gyrovirus infecting a sea bird

“…CAV is a widespread pathogen of chickens that causes clinical disease and subclinical immunosuppression affecting CD8+ T lymphocytes, leading to significant losses in the poultry industry [1, 27, 29]. Since 2011, using viral metagenomics or rolling-circle amplification, several new gyrovirus genomes have been identified in chicken sera and tissue, human feces and skin swabs, and in animal feces, including human gyrovirus 1 (HGyV1), the closely related avian gyrovirus 2 (AGV2), and GyV3 through 7 [4, 7–9, 24, 26, 28,36, 37] (Table 1). Many of these gyroviruses have been reported in chickens (CAV, HGyV1/ AGV2, GyV3, 4, and 7) [4, 36].…”

“…Many of these gyroviruses have been reported in chickens (CAV, HGyV1/ AGV2, GyV3, 4, and 7) [4, 36]. CAV shows high resistance to inactivation [34], and DNA from CAV, HGyV1/AGV2, GyV3 and 4 has also been reported in feces of humans and other mammals, indicating possible dietary sources from consuming chicken [4, 7, 8, 22, 24, 31, 37]. Testing for HGyV1/AGV2 DNA in human blood samples has yielded conflicting results [2, 17, 18, 22], possibly complicated by its detection on human skin [28].…”