Nucleotide sequence-based identification of a novel circovirus of canaries

Abstract

Circovirus-like, spherical particles measuring 16 to 18 nm in diameter were detected in organ homogenates from adult canaries that had died after a short illness characterized by dullness, anorexia, lethargy and feather disorder. A polymerase chain reaction method, based on degenerate primers specific to conserved amino acid sequences in the circovirus replication-associated protein, was used to amplify DNA specific to a novel circovirus, tentatively named canary circovirus (CCV). Sequence analysis of a 510 nucleotide genomic fragment indicated that CCV exhibited 67.4, 64.9, 53.7 and 53.9% nucleotide identities and 70.0, 61.8, 40.4 and 40.1% amino acid identities with columbid (pigeon) circovirus (CoCV), beak and feather disease virus (BFDV), porcine circovirus type 1 and porcine circovirus type 2, respectively. CCV therefore represents a new avian virus of the genus Circovirus of the family Circoviridae, and is more closely related to CoCV than BFDV. The availability of nucleotide sequence data will facilitate the development of DNA-detecting diagnostics with which the prevalence of CCV infections can be assessed.

Molecular characterization of novel circoviruses from finch and gull

“…The first PCR step capitalized on the probability that nucleotide sequences present in the CaCV genome, which were highly conserved when isolates of PiCV, BFDV and CaCV were compared, would also occur in the genomes of circoviruses that infect finches and gulls and that, as such, PCR amplification of circovirus amplicons would be facilitated. Earlier investigations used degenerate primers, selected after comparison of the PCV1 and BFDV genome sequences, to amplify small regions of the Rep genes of PiCV, GoCV and CaCV (Phenix et al ., 2001;Todd et al ., 2001b;Hattermann et al ., 2003). This is the first reported use of the CAN-1F/CAN-IR primer pair, and the success achieved suggests that these primers may be useful for detecting other avian circoviruses that are more closely related to BFDV, PiCV and CaCV.…”

Circovirus-infected geese studied byin situhybridization

“…The genus Circovirus of the family Circoviridae contains, or is likely to contain, porcine circovirus type 1 and porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2), psittacine beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) and pigeon or columbid circovirus (PiCV) (Mankertz et al ., 2000;Todd, 2000;Todd et al ., 2001b). Additional candidate members of the genus have also recently been described, namely canary circovirus (Todd et al ., 2001a), goose circovirus (GoCV) (Todd et al ., 2001b) and duck circovirus (Hattermann et al ., 2003).…”

Detection and differentiation of avian pneumoviruses (metapneumoviruses)

“…These were used to successfully amplify a 353 base pair fragment of the L gene. This comparative approach, involving viruses of different host species, has been recently used to identify a new circovirus (Todd, 2000;Todd et al, 2001). An extension of this approach would be to include sequences of the human metapneumoviruses in the comparisons (van den Hoogen et al, 2001).…”