title: A Massachusetts prototype like coronavirus isolated from wild peafowls is pathogenic to chickens.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Center for Molecular Virology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Gui-Hong
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jing-Wei
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Jia-Dong
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Wei-Sheng
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Chao-An
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Xin
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Wen-Jun
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral