College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, China.
BMC Genomics. 2022 Apr 11;23(1):290. doi: 10.1186/s12864-022-08425-8.
Pigeon circovirus (PiCV) infections in pigeons (Columba livia) have been reported worldwide. Currently, pigeon racing is becoming increasingly popular and considered to be a national sport in China, and even, the greatest competitions of racing pigeons are taking place in China. However, there are still no epidemiologic data regarding PiCV infections among racing pigeons in China. The purpose of our study was to provide information of prevalence, genetic variation and evolution of PiCV from racing pigeons in China.
To trace the prevalence, genetic variation and evolution of PiCV in sick and healthy racing pigeons, 622 samples were collected from 11 provinces or municipalities in China from 2016 to 2019. The results showed that the positive rate of PiCV was 19.3% (120/622) at the sample level and 59.0% (23/39) at the club level, thus suggesting that the virus was prevalent in Chinese racing pigeons. A sequence analysis revealed that the cap genes of the PiCV strains identified in our study displayed a high genetic diversity and shared nucleotide homologies of 71.9%-100% and amino acid homologies of 71.7%-100%. 28 and 36 unique amino acid substitutions were observed in the Cap and Rep proteins derived from our PiCV strains, respectively. A cladogram representation of PiCV strains phylogeny based on 90 cap gene sequences showed that the strains in this study could be further divided into seven clades (A, B, C, E, G, H, and I) and some of them were closely related to worldwide strains from different types of pigeons. A large number of recombination events (31 events) were also detected in the PiCV genomes from Chinese racing pigeons.
These findings indicate that PiCV strains circulating in China exhibit a high genetic diversity and also contribute to information of prevalence, genetic variation and evolution of PiCV from racing pigeons in China.
鸽圆环病毒（PiCV）在鸽子（Columba livia）中的感染已在全球范围内报道。目前，赛鸽运动在中国越来越受欢迎，被认为是一项国球运动，甚至，赛鸽的最大比赛都在中国举行。然而，目前中国还没有关于赛鸽 PiCV 感染的流行病学数据。我们的研究目的是提供中国赛鸽 PiCV 流行率、遗传变异和进化的信息。
为了追踪中国赛鸽 PiCV 的流行率、遗传变异和进化，我们从 2016 年至 2019 年从中国 11 个省/直辖市收集了 622 个样本。结果表明，PiCV 的阳性率在样本水平为 19.3%（120/622），在俱乐部水平为 59.0%（23/39），表明该病毒在中国赛鸽中流行。序列分析显示，我们研究中鉴定的 PiCV 株的 cap 基因显示出很高的遗传多样性，核苷酸同源性为 71.9%-100%，氨基酸同源性为 71.7%-100%。从我们的 PiCV 株衍生的 Cap 和 Rep 蛋白中分别观察到 28 和 36 个独特的氨基酸取代。基于 90 个 cap 基因序列的 PiCV 株系统发育的系统发育树表示，本研究中的株可进一步分为七个分支（A、B、C、E、G、H 和 I），其中一些与来自不同类型鸽子的全球株密切相关。在中国赛鸽中也检测到大量的重组事件（31 个事件）。
这些发现表明，在中国流行的 PiCV 株显示出很高的遗传多样性，也为中国赛鸽 PiCV 的流行率、遗传变异和进化提供了信息。
