Isolation and characterization of an astrovirus causing fatal visceral gout in domestic goslings

Zhang, Qingshui; Cao, Yanxin; Wang, Jun; Fu, Guanghua; Sun, Mengxu; Zhang, Lijiao; Meng, Li; Cui, Guolin; Huang, Yu; Hu, Xueying; Su, Jingliang

In poultry, AstV infections have been found to be associated with multiple diseases, such as poult enteritis mortality syndrome, runting-stunting syndrome of broilers, white chick syndrome, kidney and visceral gout in broilers and fatal hepatitis of ducklings, leading to substantial economic losses [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] . Increasing evidence indicates that there is a high degree of cross species transmission of AstVs between domestic birds, and even the potential to infect humans 17 . By comparison, fewer AstV infection cases have been described in domestic goose flocks. Bidin et al. 18 reported the detection of avian nephritis virus infection in Croatian goose flocks and provided evidence that this AstV was associated with stunting and prehatching mortality of goose embryos. Studies to detect AstV genomes from the clinical samples of geese suggested that these viruses might distribute widely among goose flocks, as seen in other poultry flocks 19, 20 . In February 2017, an outbreak of disease was reported in a goose farm in Weifang, Shandong Province, China. Affected flocks (containing 2000-3000 goslings) experienced continuous mortality rates ranging from 20 to 30% during the first 2 weeks of the outbreak despite antibiotic and supportive treatment. We conducted a systematic investigation to identify the causative agent of this disease and report here the isolation and characterization of a genetically distinct avian AstV. The pathogenicity of this virus was evaluated by experimental infection of goslings.