Molecular and pathogenicity characterization of Gallid herpesvirus 2 newly isolated in China from 2009 to 2013

During the course of our continuous surveillance of Gallid herpesvirus 2 (GaHV-2), 44 isolates were obtained from GaHV-2-positive chickens of different flocks in China from 2009 to 2013. The meq gene, considered as a major GaHV-2 oncogene, was sequenced and was found to contain an open reading frame of 1020 nucleotides encoding a 339 amino acid (aa) polypeptide in all isolates. Compared with the GaHV-2 GA strain, the meq genes in 15.9 % (7/44) of the isolates analyzed in this study contained an aa substitution mutation at position 88 (A to T) of which is the first report. The main characteristics of Chinese GaHV-2 isolates meq genes included the substitutions K77E, D80Y, V115A, T139A, P176R, and P217A, and the aa substitution frequency at positions 139 and 176 showed an increase. To test the pathogenicity of the isolates, a pathogenicity study and a vaccination-challenge test were performed on three selected isolates (ZY/1203, WC/1203, and WC/1110) and reference strain GA. The results showed that the three isolates induced gross Marek’s disease (MD) lesions in 95.0–100 % cases, which was a higher rate than that obtained for strain GA (82.4 %). Three isolates induced mortality in 10–21.1 % of specific-pathogen-free chickens, which was similar to results with strain GA (23.5 %). The commercially available CVI988 vaccine induced lower protective indices (PIs) against ZY/1203 (82.4) and WC/1110 (83.3) as compared to those against WC/1203 (100) and GA (100). These results showed an evolving trend in the meq genes of the isolates; three isolates exhibited higher morbidity as compared to the reference strain and the vaccine induced lower PIs against two isolates as compared to that against the reference strain.