Isolation and characterization of a novel chicken astrovirus in China

Abstract

Chicken astrovirus ( CAstV ) is associated with kidney disease and visceral gout, runting and stunting syndrome, and white chick hatchery disease, causing economic losses to the poultry industry worldwide. In this study, 55.6% of 36 clinical samples from Guangdong province in China were positive for CAstV, but negative for other common enteric viruses, including avian nephritis virus, infectious bronchitis virus, fowl adenovirus Group I, Newcastle disease virus, chicken parvovirus, reovirus, and rotavirus by PCRs and RT-PCRs. A CAstV strain, named GD202013, was isolated from Guangdong province in south China, and was identified by CAstV RT-PCR. A whole genome sequence analysis demonstrated that GD202013 shares 76.0 to 88.1% identity with 24 reference strains in GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis, based on whole genome and capsid protein, showed that GD202013 is more closely related to 2 US strains (GA2011/US/2011 and 4175/US/2011) belonging to subgroup Bii. Recombination analysis indicated that GD202013 is a recombinant strain formed by 3 strains: a major parent strain CkP5/US/2016, and 2 minor parent strains (GA2011/US/2011 and G059/PL/2014). In addition, the chicken embryo infection experiment demonstrated that GD202013 causes hatchability reduction, growth depression, and death of embryos. Macroscopic and microscopic lesions in the liver, kidney and small intestine were observed in the dead-in-shell embryos. This is the first report of the novel CAstV infection in China.

Isolation and phylogenetic analysis of goose astrovirus type 1 from goslings with gout in Jiangxi province, China

“…The disease mainly occurs in the goose within 3 weeks mortality rate of 10 to 50% ( Wan et al, 2018 ; Zhang et al, 2018 ). Through pathogen isolation and animal regression experiments, the pathogen causing the disease was determined to be goose astrovirus type 2 ( GoAstV-2 ) ( Wang et al., 2020 , Yang et al., 2018 ; Yin et al, 2021 ). Recently, Clinical reports indicated that goose astrovirus type 1 ( GoAstV-1 ) could cause kidney swelling and visceral gout in goslings, symptomatically indistinguishable from those caused by GoAstV-2 ( Wang et al, 2021 ).…”

Diagnosing Infectious Diseases in Poultry Requires a Holistic Approach: A Review

“…In an earlier study, the susceptibility of the cell line to multiplicate Avian Nephritis Virus (ANV) and duck astroviruses (DAstV) was demonstrated as well. Isolation of DAstV-1 was described later on, again with CPE at the 5th passage [147,148]. The same number of passages was reported to induce visible changes in LMH cells during isolation of goose astrovirus [149].…”

Pathogenesis of Chicken Astrovirus Related Illnesses

“…Although other viruses have been implicated in cases of RSS, underperformance, and growth checks, recent studies have identified CAstV as the sole etiologic pathogen responsible for the condition in chickens and turkeys (10,12,20,39). Similarly, DNA and RNA extracted from birds exhibiting underperformance, growth checks, and amplified using various enteric virus-specific primers were consistently positive for CAstV but negative for other enteric viruses (9,17,40). Next-generation sequencing and metagenomic approach, as an alternative, have been used to detect the presence of CAstV in the clinical samples (6,41,42).…”

“…In the UK and Malaysia, a seroprevalence investigation reveals seropositivity of CAstV in four generations of broilers and broiler breeder flocks, respectively, (8,9). Since the initial detection of CAstV in the flocks of commercial broiler chickens in 2004 (10), new strains of CAstV have been identified and characterized in chickens worldwide (5,9,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17).…”

“…Despite the progress made in the detection and characterization of novel CAstVs (9,14,17,21,22), there is still a dearth of knowledge about its pathogenesis. Studies on both human and turkey astroviruses have demonstrated an increase in the permeability of intestinal epithelial cells, leading to the disruption of tight junctions between the cells (23,24).…”