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Detection and characterisation of coronaviruses in migratory and non-migratory Australian wild birds

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-01, 00:00 authored by Anthony Chamings, Tiffanie Nelson, Jessy Vibin, M Wille, Marcel KlaassenMarcel Klaassen, Soren AlexandersenSoren Alexandersen
We evaluated the presence of coronaviruses by PCR in 918 Australian wild bird samples collected during 2016-17. Coronaviruses were detected in 141 samples (15.3%) from species of ducks, shorebirds and herons and from multiple sampling locations. Sequencing of selected positive samples found mainly gammacoronaviruses, but also some deltacoronaviruses. The detection rate of coronaviruses was improved by using multiple PCR assays, as no single assay could detect all coronavirus positive samples. Sequencing of the relatively conserved Orf1 PCR amplicons found that Australian duck gammacoronaviruses were similar to duck gammacoronaviruses around the world. Some sequenced shorebird gammacoronaviruses belonged to Charadriiformes lineages, but others were more closely related to duck gammacoronaviruses. Australian duck and heron deltacoronaviruses belonged to lineages with other duck and heron deltacoronaviruses, but were almost 20% different in nucleotide sequence to other deltacoronavirus sequences available. Deltacoronavirus sequences from shorebirds formed a lineage with a deltacoronavirus from a ruddy turnstone detected in the United States. Given that Australian duck gammacoronaviruses are highly similar to those found in other regions, and Australian ducks rarely come into contact with migratory Palearctic duck species, we hypothesise that migratory shorebirds are the important vector for moving wild bird coronaviruses into and out of Australia.

History

Journal

Scientific reports

Volume

8

Article number

5980

Pagination

1 - 10

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Location

London, Eng.

ISSN

2045-2322

eISSN

2045-2322

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2018, The Authors