A Massachusetts prototype like coronavirus isolated from wild peafowls is pathogenic to chickens.

Coronavirus infection was investigated in apparently healthy wild peafowls in Guangdong province of China in 2003, while severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out there. No SARS-like coronavirus had been isolated but a novel avian coronavirus strain, Peafowl/GD/KQ6/2003 (KQ6), was identified. Sequence analysis revealed that KQ6 was an avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), a member of coronavirus in group 3. The genome sequence of KQ6 had extremely high degree of identity with that of a Massachusetts prototype IBV M41. KQ6 was pathogenic to chickens but non-pathogenic to peafowls under experimental conditions. Seventeen out of fifty-four (31.48%) peafowl serum samples were tested positive for specific antibodies against IBV. Present results indicate that the peafowl isolate KQ6 is a Massachusetts prototype like coronavirus strain which undergoes few genetic changes and peafowl might have acted as a natural reservoir of IBV for very long time.