Isolation and characterization of a goose astrovirus 1 strain causing fatal gout in goslings, China

Isolation and phylogenetic analysis of goose astrovirus type 1 from goslings with gout in Jiangxi province, China

“…In 2019, a disease outbreak occurred in a commercial geese farm located in Jiangsu Province. The pathogen was GoAstV-1 by Next-Generation Sequencing ( NGS ) and replication experiments ( Wang et al, 2021 ). However, there has been minimal coverage on GoAstV-1 in China.…”

“…Through pathogen isolation and animal regression experiments, the pathogen causing the disease was determined to be goose astrovirus type 2 ( GoAstV-2 ) ( Wang et al., 2020 , Yang et al., 2018 ; Yin et al, 2021 ). Recently, Clinical reports indicated that goose astrovirus type 1 ( GoAstV-1 ) could cause kidney swelling and visceral gout in goslings, symptomatically indistinguishable from those caused by GoAstV-2 ( Wang et al, 2021 ). However, little information is available because GoAstV-1 is a new viral disease.…”

“…GoAstV-1’s full-length genome is approximately 7.3 kb in size and is organized in the following order: 5′ untranslated region ( UTR ), open reading frames 1a and 1b ( ORF1a/b ), open reading frame 2 ( ORF2 ), 3′UTR and a poly (A) tail. ORF1a and ORF1b encode nonstructural protein for viral RNA replication and transcription, and ORF2 encodes capsid proteins associated with the virion formation ( Wang et al, 2021 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ). The astrovirus polymerase has no proofreading function during the replication cycle, so the virus is prone to error, increasing the mutation rate ( Wohlgemuth et al, 2019 ).…”

Extensive genetic heterogeneity and molecular characteristics of emerging astroviruses causing fatal gout in goslings

“…To date, GoAstV has caused substantial great economic losses to the goose industry in China ( Jin et al., 2018 ), and currently, there is no effective vaccine for prevention and control ( Xu et al., 2019 ). Various dynamic factors lead to the rapid spread of the GoAstV, thereby causing continued harm to the goose industry in China which is expected to persist in the foreseeable future ( Yuan et al., 2019 ; Wang et al., 2021 ).…”

“…The evolutionary trees also showed that there were obvious differences between the 14 newly isolated strains and the FLX and AHDY strains from the G-II group ( Zhang et al., 2017 ). To date, the TZ03 strain isolated from Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, China shared the highest identity (96.6%) with the GoAstV-2 strain FLX, indicating that G-II strains are circulating and causing ongoing goose gout disease in China ( Wang et al., 2021 ).…”