Characterization of Newcastle disease virus obtained from toco toucan

Given that the current Newcastle disease virus (NDV) infection in wild birds poses the threat to poultry, surveillance of Newcastle disease in captive wild birds was carried out in Jilin, China in 2018. Here, an NDV strain obtained from toco toucan was firstly characterized. The results showed that the F gene of the NDV isolate Toucan/China/3/2018 is classified as genotype II in class II. Sequence analysis of the F0 cleavage site was ¹¹³RQGR/L¹¹⁷, which supports the result of the intracerebral pathogenicity index assay indicating classification of the isolate as low-pathogenicity. Experimental infection demonstrated that Toucan/China/3/2018 can effectively replicate and transmit among chickens. To our knowledge, this is the first report on genetically and pathogenically characterizing NDV strain isolated from toucan, which enriches the epidemiological information of NDV in wild birds.