Co-circulation of multiple genotypes of ARV in poultry in Anhui, China

ABSTRACT

Poultry production in China has been experiencing a high incidence of broiler arthritis /tenosynovitis caused by avian orthoreovirus (ARV) since 2013. In the spring of 2020 severe arthritis cases from broiler flocks were identified in a large-scale commercial poultry company in Anhui Province, China. Diseased organs from dead birds were sent for diagnosis to our laboratory. ARVs, including seven broiler-isolates and two breeder-isolates, were successfully harvested and sequenced. Interestingly, the genotypes of ARVs isolated from infected chickens were inconsistent between different flocks, or even between different houses on the same flocks. Pathogenicity testing in chicks confirmed that the seven broiler-isolates were pathogenic strains, which could cause arthritis in infected chickens. Subsequently, a total of 89.66% serum samples collected from apparently healthy adult broiler flocks not vaccinated against ARV tested positive for ARV antibodies, suggesting that low and high virulence reovirus strains may be co-circulating in the farm. To this end, we collected dead embryos of unhatched chicken eggs for pathogen tracing, and the two ARV breeder-isolates isolated indicated that vertical transmission from breeders to progeny should not be underestimated for the prevalence of ARV within broiler flocks. The findings have implications for the evidenced-based formulation of prevention and control strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Avian orthoreovirus (ARV)
• isolation
• multiple genotypes
• seroprevalence
• SNT; pathogenicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YD, YT, XJ, FW. Performed the experiments: XJ FW. Analyzed the data: XJ, FW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: XJ, JY et al. Wrote the paper: XJ, FW.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Youxiang Diao: [email protected]; Yi Tang: [email protected], upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Shandong Province Excellent Youth Fund: [Grant Number ZR2019YQ17]; Guangzhou Industry Leading Talents Gathering Project: [Grant Number 202009020009].