Enteric viruses in turkey flocks: a historic review

Abstract

In this review, diagnostic techniques and viral agents involved in enteric diseases affecting turkeys are described. Data from field observations and laboratory researches have been reported in turkey flocks for over 70 years, and several viruses have been identified. After a period of 30 years of inoculation experiments and neutralization studies, adequate visualization of the viruses was achieved using electronic microscopy. During the following years, several studies were then conducted to isolate and classify those viruses using cell-culture, embryo-propagation, serological tests, genome electropherotyping by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of double-stranded RNA viruses, and recently, nucleic acid studies. Thus, since the 1990s, the nucleicacid technology has focused on genomic surveys and on the detection of specific segments of the genome of each virus using the polymerasechain reaction, resulting in several prevalence studies and phylogenetic analyses of different isolates and proper classification of the viruses.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Immunosuppressive interactions of viral diseases in poultry

“…These symptoms are observed alongside less frequent clinical signs including diarrhoea, increased mortality, and pancreatic and lymphoid atrophy. Enteric diseases seem to be the most acceptable name for this clinical manifestation because it most appropriately reflects the consistency of clinical findings and indicates that these cases are probably caused by the same infectious agents (Alavarez et al, 2014;Mettifogo et al, 2014). Viral enteritis syndromes in chickens and turkeys (runting stunting syndrome (RSS); poultry enteritis and mortality syndrome (PEMS)) involve one or more etiologic viruses, and contributing management issues, such as short down time between flocks.…”

Virus-induced immunosuppression in turkeys (<i>Meleagris gallopavo</i>): A review

“…Gross pathology showed gastrointestinal lesions, associated to liver, pancreatic, and lymphoid damage. These symptoms and lesions are considered to be the main enteric syndrome that is why laboratory investigations consist on the use of essential tool to confirm etiological agents (Alavarez et al, 2014;Mettifogo et al, 2014). In turkeys, the most important enteric viral diseases are represented by hemorrhagic enteritis (HE), runting stunting syndrome (RSS) and PEMS (Table 1).…”

Haemorrhagic enteritis of turkeys – current knowledge

“…Electronic microscopy (EM) was used for better visualization of the viruses in tissues and cell culture (Alavarez et al 2014). EM of field cases revealed numerous affected cells with several virus particles seen intranuclearly scattered in splenocytes and enterocytes.…”