Emergence and Genetic Analysis of Avian Gyrovirus 2 Variants-RelatedGyrovirusin Farmed King-ratsnakes (Elaphe carinata): the First Report in China

Abstract

Avian gyrovirus 2 (AGV2), which is similar to chicken infectious anemia 17 virus, is a new member of the Circovirus genus. AGV2 has been detected not only in chicken 18 but also in human tissues and feces. In this study, a total of 91 samples (8 liver tissues and 83 19 faecal samples) collected from king-ratsnakes (Elaphe carinata) at 7 separate farms in Hubei 20and Henan, China, were analyzed to detect AGV2 DNA via specific PCR. The results 21 indicated a low positive rate of AGV2 (6.59%, 6/91) in the studied animals, and all of the 22 IMPORTANCE Recently, AGV2 has been detected in live poultry markets and human 32 blood in mainland China. Previous findings indicated future studies should investigate the 33 large geographic distribution of AGV2 and monitor the variants, the host range, and the 34 associated diseases. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first report on AGV2 35 infected poikilotherm, suggested that cross-host transmission of viruses with circular 36 single-stranded DNA genomes would be a public health concern. 37 38 KEYWORDSAvian gyrovirus 2, variants-related gyrovirus, sequence analysis, 39 phylogenetic tree, amino acid sites 40 41 42