Naturally occurring cell-adapted classic strain of infectious bursal disease virus

Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), the etiological agent of infectious bursal disease (IBD), is a variable RNA virus of Avibirnavirus. Some artificially attenuated vaccine strains of IBDV can adapt to cell culture of chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cell or its immortalized cell line DF1 in vitro while wild-type IBDV cannot. In this study, for the first time, a naturally occurring cell-adapted classic strain (genogroup 1) of IBDV named IBD17JL01 was identified in China. Animal experiments showed that IBD17JL01 could severely damage the central immune organ of infected chickens. Sequence analysis of the full-length genome revealed the peculiar molecular characteristics of IBD17JL01 with a few amino acid substitutions that might be involved in cell-tropism, antigenicity, and virulence of IBDV. Identification of this novel strain is beneficial to our understanding of the complexity of the epidemiology of IBDV. And the expansion of viral cell-tropism might increase the potential risk of the reassortment of different IBDVs including the live vaccines.