Recently, a novel duck picornavirus was isolated from Cherry Valley ducks with short-beak dwarfism syndrome by the Innovation Team of Small Animal Infectious Disease, Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute. The relevant results were published in the journal of Veterinary Microbiology.

Duck short beak and dwarfism syndrome (DSBDS) is a new infectious disease of meat ducks caused by a duck-origin goose parvovirus. A novel duck picornavirus (DPiV), designated as duck/AH15/CHN/2015, was isolated from viscera (liver, heart, spleen and pancreas) of Cherry Valley ducks with clinical signs of SBDS using specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chicken embryonated eggs in China, and characterized by viral metagenomic analysis. Duck/AH15/CHN/2015 has the highest degree of amino acid sequence identity (approximately 43 %) with duck hepatitis A viruses (DHAV). Compared to the closest related DHAVs, two unrelated 2A proteins were predicted in duck/AH15/CHN/2015, while three unrelated 2A proteins were presented in DHAVs. Based on the amino acid identity comparison and phylogenetic analysis of P1, 2C, and 3CD (3C and 3D), duck/AH15/CHN/2015 was closely related to but distinct from DHAVs, and it was proposed to be a member of a novel species in the genus Avihepatovirus of the family Picornaviridae. These results not only expanded the species of the family Picornaviridae, but also provide an important insight into the pathogenesis and etiology of DSBDS.

This study was funded by the National Key Research and Develop-ment Program of China (No. 2016YFD0501003), the Shanghai Science and Technology Promotion Agriculture Innovation Program (2019No.3-3).

Full text link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33341468/