Abstract
Marek’s disease is a highly contagious, oncogenic, and immunosuppressive avian viral disease. Surveillance of newly registered Marek’s disease virus (MDV) isolates is meaningful for revealing the potential factors involved in increased virulence. Presently, we have focused on the molecular characteristics of all available MDVs from China, including 17 new Henan isolates. Based on Meq, gE, and gI genes, we found that most Chinese isolates contain conserved amino acid point mutations in Meq, such as E77, A115, A139, R176, and A217, compared to USA virulent MDVs. However, the 59-aa or 60-aa insertions are only found in a few mild MDVs rather than virulent MDVs in China. Further phylogenetic analysis has demonstrated that a different genotype of MDV has been prevalent in China, and for virulent MDVs, their recent evolution has possibly been geographically restricted. Our study has provided more detailed information regarding the field MDVs circulating in China.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Open Project of the State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol (No. SKLBC2011K02), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31072145) and the Key Project supported by NSFC-Guangdong Joint Fund (No. U1131005). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the critical review by Prof. Norman A. Gregson (ION, UCL, London, UK).
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Zu-Hua Yu and Man Teng have contributed equally to this study.
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Yu, ZH., Teng, M., Luo, J. et al. Molecular characteristics and evolutionary analysis of field Marek’s disease virus prevalent in vaccinated chicken flocks in recent years in China. Virus Genes 47, 282–291 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-013-0942-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-013-0942-y