Isolation and characterization of a novel parvovirus from a red-crowned crane, China, 2021

Parvoviruses are icosahedral, nonenveloped viruses with single-stranded DNA genomes of approximately 5 kb in length. In recent years, parvoviruses have frequently mutated and expanded their host range to cause disease in many wild animals by altering their tissue tropism. Animal infection mainly results in acute enteritis and inflammation of other organs. In this study, we used a viral metagenomic method to detect a novel parvovirus species in a red-crowned crane that died due to severe diarrhea in China.

The presence of the viral genome in the kidney, lung, heart, liver, and intestine were confirmed by PCR. Histopathological examination of the intestine showed a large number of infiltrated inflammatory cells. The JL21/10 strain of the red-crowned crane parvovirus was first isolated from the intestine. Whole-genome sequence analysis showed that JL21/10 shared high identity with the red-crowned crane Parvovirinae strains yc-8 at the nucleotide level (96.61%). Phylogenetic analysis of the complete genome and NS1 gene revealed that the JL21/10 strain clustered with strains in chicken and revealed a close genetic relationship with the red-crowned crane parvovirus strains.The complete of VP2 gene analysis showed that JL21/10 shared identity with the red-crowned crane yc-8 strains (97.7%), chicken (55.4%),ducks(31.0%) and geese(30.1%) at the amino acid level. The result showed that red-crowned crane parvovirus may be cross-species transmission to chicken. However, There is little possibility of transmission to ducks and geese.

This is the first isolation and identification of a parvovirus in red-crowned crane that was associated with severe diarrhea.