Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (3): 1127-1136.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.03.025

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Isolation of ALV-K Associated with Endothelial Hemangioma in Chicken and Analysis of gp85 Gene Evolution

LIANG Canxin, ZHENG Xiaoxue, SHU Xueli, ZHOU Wanyi, LIAO Ming, CAO Weisheng*   

  1. National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Zoonoses Prevention and Control Agents;Key Laboratory of Veterinary Vaccine Creation of Ministry of Agriculture;Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of Zoonotic Diseases of Guangdong Province, College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
  • Received:2023-06-06 Online:2024-03-23 Published:2024-03-27

Abstract: In the study, we found that one type of tumors in yellow-feather chicken that look like a white, stiff, irregular shaped mass, growing up at the position between comb and eyelid. In order to identify the pathogenetic characteristics and causative agent of the disease, we have made a series of diagnoses and studies of the disease. Research has found that about 2% sick chicken in the laying hens, they have no other pathological changes other than the tumors. The histopathological diagnosis the pathological tissue was Hemangioendothelioma. RT-PCR tests on tumor tissue showed that the sick chickens were infected with the subgroup K avian leukosis virus (ALV-K). We have tried to isolate the viruses from 32 blood samples, 6 tumor tissues and brain tissues of infected chicks. Finally, we successfully isolated 4 strains of ALV-K from brain tissues. The 4 strains of ALV-K were named as GXJL01-GXJL04. To better understand the molecular characterization of GXJL01-GXJL04. On the other hand, we have isolated another 7 strains of ALV-K from 5 large-scale chicken farms in South China, amplifying and sequencing their env genome. The phylogenetic tree of 11 strains of ALV-K was drawn by MEGA-X software based on gp85 amino acid sequence, indicating that GXJL01-GXJL04 were most similar to the JS15SG01 and fowl glioma-inducing virus (FGV) such as Km5844 and Sp53, and they were distantly related to the genetic evolution of the other 7 ALV-K isolates in this study. What's more, in the analysis of gp85 amino acid point mutation, we have found that some amino acid sites are the same as fowl glioma-inducing virus and JS15SG01, while they are different from other 7 strains of ALV-K from south China. In the study, the tumors of the chicken was firstly diagnosed as Hemangioendothelioma, the associated pathogen was ALV-K, and the isolates GXJL01-GXJL04 were highly homologous to neurotropic strains like FGV, JS15SG01, but were different from the other circulating ALV-K in South China.

Key words: yellow-feathered broiler, fowl hemangioendothelioma, ALV-K, phylogenetic analysis

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