A Massachusetts prototype like coronavirus isolated from wild peafowls is pathogenic to chickens.
Coronavirus infection was investigated in apparently healthy wild peafowls in Guangdong province of China in 2003, while severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out there. No SARS-like coronavirus had been isolated but a novel avian coronavirus strain, Peafowl/GD/KQ6/2003 (KQ6), was identified. Sequence analysis revealed that KQ6 was an avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), a member of coronavirus in group 3. The genome sequence of KQ6 had extremely high degree of identity with that of a Massachusetts prototype IBV M41. KQ6 was pathogenic to chickens but non-pathogenic to peafowls under experimental conditions. Seventeen out of fifty-four (31.48%) peafowl serum samples were tested positive for specific antibodies against IBV. Present results indicate that the peafowl isolate KQ6 is a Massachusetts prototype like coronavirus strain which undergoes few genetic changes and peafowl might have acted as a natural reservoir of IBV for very long time.
Sun
Lei
L
Center for Molecular Virology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China.
Zhang
Gui-Hong
GH
Jiang
Jing-Wei
JW
Fu
Jia-Dong
JD
Ren
Tao
T
Cao
Wei-Sheng
WS
Xin
Chao-An
CA
Liao
Ming
M
Liu
Wen-Jun
WJ
D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002681:China; D018352:Coronavirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D001351:Infectious bronchitis virus / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D007668:Kidney / Q000473:pathology; D008168:Lung / Q000473:pathology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011201:Poultry Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology
D000914:Antibodies, Viral