The first evidence of shaking mink syndrome (SMS)-astrovirus infection in farmed minks, China

A novel neurological disorder disease, shaking mink syndrome (SMS), emerged in Denmark and Sweden since 2000. The SMS has seldom been reported in China, and the causative agent is uncertain. SMS outbreaks occurred in multiple provinces in 2020, A total of 44 brain samples from minks associated with SMS were collected from Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Shandong provinces, of which 28 samples (63.3%) were SMS-Astrovirus (SMS-AstV) positive by reverse transcription PCR. Moreover, the complete coding region sequences (CDS) of a sample collected from a two-month-old mink (termed SMS-Astv-H1) were amplified by PCR. The complete CDS and ORF2 sequences of SMS-AstV-H1 were 94.3% and 96.4% identical to an SMS-AstV strain (GenBank accession number: GU985458). Phylogenetically, SMS-Astv-H1 was closely related to an SMS-AstV strain (GU985458). Based on the above results, we describe the SMS-AstV infections related to SMS among farmed minks in China. Future studies need to focus on epidemiology, virus isolation, and potential interspecies transmission of SMS-AstV.