Detection and molecular characterization of infectious bronchitis-like viruses in wild bird populations.

We examined 884 wild birds mainly from the Anseriformes, Charadriiformes, Galliforme orders for infectious bronchits (IBV)-like coronavirus in Poland between 2008 and 2011. Coronavirus (CoV) was detected in 31 (3.5%) of the tested birds with detection rates of 3.5% in Anseriformes and 2.3% in Charadriiformes and as high as 17.6% in Galliformes. From the 31 positive samples only ten gave positive results in molecular tests aimed at various IBV genome fragments: five samples were positive for the RdRp gene, four for gene 3, eight for gene N and eight for the 3'UTR fragment. All analyzed genome fragments of the CoV strains shared different evolutionary branches, resulting in a different phylogenetic tree topology. Most detected fragment genes seem to be IBV-like genes of the most frequently detected lineages of IBV in this geographical region, i.e. Massachusettes, 793B and QX. Two waves of CoV infections were identified: one in spring (April-May) and another in late autumn (October-December). To our knowledge this is the first report of the detection of different fragment IBV-like genes in wild bird populations. PMID: 25133705 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Avian Pathology - Category: Pathology Authors: Tags: Avian Pathol Source Type: research