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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Endemic Poultry Viral Diseases Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #310021
Title: Host specificity and phylogenetic relationships of chicken and turkey parvoviruses

Author
item Zsak, Laszlo
item Cha, Ra Mi
item Li, Fenglan
item Day, James

Submitted to: Avian Diseases
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/19/2014
Publication Date: 11/19/2014
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/61290
Citation: Zsak, L., Cha, R., Li, F., Day, J.M. 2014. Host specificity and phylogenetic relationships of chicken and turkey parvoviruses. Avian Diseases. 59(1):157-161. doi: 10.1637/10939-092414-ResNote.

Interpretive Summary: Here, we show that inoculation of specific pathogen free chickens and turkeys with chicken and turkey parvoviruses resulted in productive chicken parvovirus replication only in inoculated chickens but not in turkeys; similarly turkey parvoviruses replicated only in inoculated turkeys but not in chickens. When nucleotide sequences of the structural virus protein (VP1) were compared with each other, all chicken and turkey parvovirus strains formed independent phylogenetic clusters, respectively. These results suggest that the VP1 gene may play an essential role in the host specificity of chicken and turkey parvoviruses, and this gene could be a more relevant polymerase chain reaction target sequence for strain classification.

Technical Abstract: Previous reports indicate that the newly discovered chicken parvoviruses (ChPV) and turkey parvoviruses (TuPV) are very similar to each other, yet they represent different species within a new genus of Parvoviridae. Currently, strain classification is based on the phylogenetic analysis of a 561 base pair polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicon from the highly conserved nonstructural (NS) viral gene. Here, we show that inoculation of specific-pathogen-free chickens and turkeys with ChPV and TuPV strains resulted in productive ChPV replication only in inoculated chickens but not in turkeys; similarly TuPV strains replicated only in inoculated turkeys but not in chickens. Phylogenetic tree constructed based on the nucleotide sequences of the NS gene segment revealed a predominately host-specific clustering of the virus strains of different species origin, but occasionally parvoviruses from chickens grouped with turkey strains and vice versa. However, when nucleotide sequences of the structural virus protein (VP1) were compared with each other, all chicken and turkey parvovirus strains formed independent phylogenetic clusters, respectively. These results suggest that the VP1 gene may play an essential role in the host specificity of ChPV and TuPV strains and could be a more relevant PCR target sequence for strain classification.