Epidemiological Characteristics and Genetic Diversity of Chicken Infectious Anemia Virus (CIAV) in Guangdong Province, China

Abstract Chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) is an immunosuppressive disease that causes enormous economic loss to the poultry industry worldwide, transmitted vertically and horizontally. In recent years, CIAV outbreaks have frequently occurred in southern China since 2014, especially in the Guangdong province. However, there is a lack of epidemiological studies of CIAV in Guangdong province. We performed PCR by using the serum and tissue samples collected from seven cities of Guangdong province. The PCR-positive tissue samples were inoculated into SPF eggs and MSB1 cells for virus isolation by blind-passages three times. This study isolated and characterized 325 serum samples and four tissue samples, the total positive CIAV rate of 62.15% in serum samples, and all four tissues were positive for the CIAV. However, the virus could only be isolated from MSB1 cells. Sequence analysis revealed that the four isolated comparisons with those in the GenBank showed high nucleotide similarities and were near clade C2. Our data showed over 60% of positive cases for CIAV serological analysis consist of seven cities, Which may lead to severe immunosuppressive effects in chickens. In summary, these findings provide new insights to guide molecular epidemiological surveillance of CIAV in Guangdong province.