1. Emerging lethal infectious bronchitis coronavirus variants with multiorgan tropism.
- Author
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Li YT, Chen TC, Lin SY, Mase M, Murakami S, Horimoto T, and Chen HW
- Subjects
- Animals, Bronchitis virology, Coronavirus Infections epidemiology, Coronavirus Infections virology, Female, Genetic Variation, Infectious bronchitis virus immunology, Infectious bronchitis virus physiology, Poultry Diseases epidemiology, Proventriculus virology, Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms, Taiwan epidemiology, Trachea virology, Viral Tropism, Bronchitis veterinary, Chickens virology, Coronavirus Infections veterinary, Disease Outbreaks veterinary, Infectious bronchitis virus genetics, Poultry Diseases virology
- Abstract
Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) causes respiratory diseases in chickens and poses an economic threat to the poultry industry worldwide. Despite vaccine use, there have been field outbreaks of IBV in Taiwan. This study aimed to characterize the emerging IBV variants circulating in Taiwan. The analysis of the structural protein genes showed that these variants emerged through frequent recombination events among Taiwan strains, China strains, Japan strains and vaccine strains. Cross-neutralization tests revealed that two of the variants exhibited novel serotypes. Clinicopathological assessment showed that two of the variants caused high fatality rates of 67% and 20% in one-day-old SPF chicks, and all the variants possessed multiorgan tropisms, including trachea, proventriculus and urogenital tissues. Furthermore, the commercial live-attenuated Mass-type vaccine conferred poor protection against these variants. This study identified novel genotypes, serotypes and pathotypes of emerging IBV variants circulating in Taiwan. There is an urgent need for effective countermeasures against these variant strains., (© 2019 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.)
- Published
- 2020
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