Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2023, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (8): 3435-3444.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2023.08.028

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Phylogenetic Analysis and Pathogenicity of an Avian Infectious Laryngotracheitis Virus Strain WF03

ZHANG Yi1,2, WANG Chenyan1, YANG Xiao2, SHAO Guoqing1,3, HOU Bo1*   

  1. 1. Fujian Animal Disease Control Technology Development Center, Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou 350013, China;
    2. MSD (Ningbo) Animal Health Technology Co., Ltd., Ningbo 315336, China;
    3. Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China
  • Received:2022-11-04 Online:2023-08-23 Published:2023-08-22

Abstract: This experiment analyzed the variations of key antigen genes and virulence genes of infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV) WF03 strain isolated from chickens that failed to be immunized with live vaccine. And also, the virulence of WF 03 was tested in SPF chickens. The phylogenetic tree of key immunogenic genes and virulence related genes of clinical ILTV isolate WF03 was performed, and the pathogenicity of this strain infected 28 and 56 days-old SPF chickens was tested. The results showed that the key immunogenic genes and virulence related genes of the WF03 strain were in the similarity evolutionary branch with the early isolates from China and some commercialized vaccine strains. The pathogenicity experiment showed that when the 28 days-old SPF chicken were challenged with WF03 strain with the doses of 104.5, 104.0, 103.5 and 103.0 EID50, respectively, the morbidity was 100%, 100%, 95% and 85%, respectively, and the mortality was 45%, 30%, 35% and 10%, respectively. The morbidity and mortality to 56 days-old SPF chickens challenged with 104.0 EID50 dose were 100% and 27.3%, respectively. The main clinical symptoms were hemoptysis, dyspnea, mouth breathing with same as typical symptoms of laryngotracheitis. The results showed that the clinical strain WF03 of ILTV was a high virulent strain and can be used as a challenge strain for vaccine efficacy, and its genetic characteristics were not significantly different from those of early isolates and vaccine strains in China. The results suggested that high virulent strains were prevalent in Chinese flocks, which will enrich the epidemiological database of current ILTV strains in China.

Key words: infectious laryngotracheitis virus, genetics, pathogenicity

CLC Number: