Presence of Infectious Bronchitis Virus Strain CK/CH/LDL/97I in the Middle East

Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is a very dynamic and evolving virus, causing major economic losses to the global poultry industry. In early 2011, respiratory disease outbreaks were investigated in Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Five IBV isolates (JOA2, JOA4, Saudi-1, Saudi-2, and Iraqi IBV) were detected by diagnostic-nested nucleocapsid RT-PCR. Strain identification was characterised by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of the amplified hypervariable region of the spike 1 (S1) gene. These five IBV isolates were found to be of the IBV strain CK/CH/LDL/97I. Nucleotide identity between these five IBV isolates ranged from 96.9% to 99.7%, and between these isolates and the CK/CH/LDL/97I strain in the range of 96.6–99.1%. The sequenced fragment of the S1 gene of the CK/CH/LDL/97I strain had less than 80% nucleotide identity to the IBV vaccine strains commonly used in the Middle East (M41 and H120). The presence of these CK/CH/LDL/97I-like strains may account for vaccination failure against IBV, since all IBV isolates were from vaccinated chickens. In this paper, we documented for the first time the presence of IBV strain CK/CH/LDL/97I in the Middle East. This strain is known to have originated in China and Taiwan. 1. Introduction Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is a positive sense single-stranded RNA virus, belonging to the genus Coronavirus, group 3 (gamma coronaviruses) [1]. Infectious bronchitis virus is not only an important pathogen of the respiratory system, but also can be nephropathogenic and cause infection of the reproductive system [2–4]. IBV was first recognised as avian respiratory pathogen in 1930, after that many IBV vaccines were introduced to tackle this problem (H52, H120, M41, 4/91(793/B), and other strains). Recently, different IBV variants have emerged causing nephropathogenic and reproductive problems which require a dramatic change in vaccination programmes [5, 6]. IBV strain CK/CH/LDL/97I was first reported in China in 1995 [7]. This strain was first implicated in proventriculitis in chickens [8], but in recent studies, this strain has been isolated from the trachea of infected chickens [9]. IBV CK/CH/LDL/97I strain accounts for 3.2% of total IBV strains found in China in the last 15 years [9]. The spike glycoprotein gene is the most variable gene in the IBV genome [10] and is composed of S1 and S2 subunits. Spike subunit 1 (S1) is about 1644？nt in length. The S1 protein is highly variable; it can differ from 20% to 25% and even up to 50% in the amino acid sequence among IBV serotypes [11]. This variability makes the S1 gene