Molecular diagnosis of avian nephritis: Preliminary report

Abstract

Kidney samples from chickens diagnosed with acute nephritis and gout were subjected to histological and electron microscopic examination. The investigations revealed cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in the tubular epithelial cells containing round virions of about 30 nm in diameter. Since avian nephritis virus (ANV) is known as a potential causative agent of the so-called baby chick nephropathy, an RT-PCR assay was developed for the molecular detection of ANVspecific nucleic acid in the specimen. The specificity of the assay was confirmed by direct sequencing of the amplicon obtained in the reaction. The nucleotide sequence of the PCR product showed 92% identity with the reference ANV sequence deposited in the GenBank database. After having been validated on some other suspicious cases of avian nephritis, the PCR method described in this study can be a potential tool for routine diagnostic examination of samples submitted from cases of gout and nephropathy in chickens.

Detection and molecular characterization of enteric viruses in enteritis-affected commercial broiler chickens in India

“…Our findings of high prevalence of these two viruses in broiler chickens with diarrhoea are consistent with those of Pantin-Jackwood et al (2007, 2008. The CAstVs or ANVs have previously been detected from chicken flocks (Baxendale and Mebatsion, 2004;Mandoki et al, 2006b;Smyth et al, 2009Smyth et al, , 2013Hewson et al, 2010;De Wit et al, 2011). We did not test these samples for the presence of other viruses and bacteria; their presence in the samples cannot be ruled out.…”

“…The ANV, originally regarded as a picornavirus, was characterized as the first astrovirus of chickens on the basis of its genome sequence (Imada et al, 2000) and was first isolated from the cloacal contents of apparently normal broiler chickens (Yamaguchi et al, 1979). This virus is known to cause diarrhoea, tubulenephrosis, interstitial nephritis, gout and death in broiler chickens (Mandoki et al, 2006b;Bulbule et al, 2013). Serological studies suggested widespread prevalence of ANV infections in commercial broiler chickens in various countries (Imada et al, 1980;Connor et al, 1987).…”

Development and evaluation of real-time TaqMan®RT-PCR assays for the detection of avian nephritis virus and chicken astrovirus in chickens

“…Conventional, non-quantitative RT-PCR tests have been previously described for CAstV (Pantin-Jackwood et al, 2006;Smyth et al, 2009) and ANV (Mandoki et al, 2006;Day et al, 2007;Todd et al, 2010). Earlier work in our laboratory with conventional tests demonstrated that the vast majority of broiler chickens become infected with these astroviruses and led us to speculate that many of the infections may be subclinical.…”

“…Both viruses grow poorly in cell culture, making virus isolation difficult, and virus-specific antibodies are not commonly available for use in immunostainingbased diagnostic tests such as immunohistochemistry. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests have recently been described for both ANV (Mandoki et al, 2006;Day et al, 2007;Todd et al, 2010) and CAstV (Pantin-Jackwood et al, 2006;Smyth et al, 2009). Using conventional RT-PCR tests, work in this laboratory has shown that both viruses were detected in very high ( !…”

Phylogenetic diversity of avian nephritis virus in Hungarian chicken flocks

“…ANV was detected in kidney samples from chickens diagnosed with acute nephritis and gout, using reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (Mándoki et al , 2006). In the past 4 years, we diagnosed ANV infections in several chicken farms from all over Hungary (Mándoki et al , 2005).…”