Recovery of divergent avian bornaviruses from cases of proventricular dilatation disease: Identification of a candidate etiologic agent

Kistler, Amy L; Gancz, Ady; Clubb, Susan; Skewes-Cox, Peter; Fischer, Kael; Sorber, Katherine; Chiu, Charles Y; Lublin, Avishai; Mechani, Sara; Farnoushi, Yigal; Greninger, Alexander; Wen, Christopher C; Karlene, Scott B; Ganem, Don; DeRisi, Joseph L

As we observed for the complete ABV genome sequence, phylogenetic analysis of the recovered subgenomic ABV sequences revealed that each of the ABV isolates we recovered resides on a branch distant from the BDV isolates ( Figure 3 ). PCR with the L gene consensus primers detected 14 isolates corresponding to 4 genetic subgroups of ABV. Each of these isolates were also detected with at least one of primer sets corresponding to the more highly expressed N gene and more conserved M gene regions of the genome; however, PCR with these two additional primer sets identified 2 additional ABV isolates that segregate to a genetically distinct 5 th subgroup among the ABVs (ABV5, Figure 3B and 3C). Although these 5 distinct branches correlate largely according to the geographic origin of the isolates, the genetic diversity we detect cannot be ascribed solely to differences in geographic origin of the isolates, since one of the branches (ABV4) is comprised of isolates derived from both the U.S. and Israel. Likewise, we did not detect an obvious correlation between host species and genetic subgroup of ABV among the recovered isolates.