Isolation and Identification of a New Isolate of Anguillid Herpesvirus 1 from Farmed American Eels ( Anguilla rostrata ) in China

• Published in: Viruses 2022-12, Vol.14 (12), p.2722
• Main Authors: Guo, Rui, Zhang, Zheng, He, Tianliang, Li, Miaomiao, Zhuo, Yuchen, Yang, Xiaoqiang, Fan, Haiping, Chen, Xinhua
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American eel (Anguilla rostrate); Analysis; AngHV-1-FC; Anguilla; Anguilla rostrata; Anguillid herpesvirus 1; Animals; Cell culture; Divergence; DNA polymerase; Experimental infection; Fish Diseases; Genetic aspects; Genomes; genomic analysis; Hemorrhage; Hemorrhagic disease; Herpesviridae - genetics; Herpesviruses; Identification and classification; Infections; Morbidity; Morphology; Mortality; Nucleotide sequence; Pathogenicity; Phylogeny; Spleen; Transmission electron microscopy; Virions; Viruses
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v14122722

Anguillid herpesvirus 1 (AngHV-1) is a pathogen that causes hemorrhagic disease in various farmed and wild freshwater eel species, resulting in significant economic losses. Although AngHV-1 has been detected in the American eel ( ), its pathogenicity has not been well characterized. In this study, an AngHV-1 isolate, tentatively named AngHV-1-FC, was isolated from diseased American eels with similar symptoms as those observed in AngHV-1-infected European eels and Japanese eels. AngHV-1-FC induced severe cytopathic effects in the European eel spleen cell line (EES), and numerous concentric circular virions were observed in the infected EES cells by transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, AngHV-1-FC caused the same symptoms as the naturally diseased European eels and Japanese eels through experimental infection, resulting in a 100% morbidity rate and 13.3% mortality rate. The whole genome sequence analyses showed that the average nucleotide identity value between AngHV-1-FC and other AngHV-1 isolates ranged from 99.28% to 99.55%. However, phylogenetic analysis revealed that there was a genetic divergence between AngHV-1-FC and other AngHV-1 isolates, suggesting that AngHV-1-FC was a new isolate of AngHV-1. Thus, our results indicated that AngHV-1-FC can infect farmed American eels, with a high pathogenicity, providing new knowledge in regard to the prevalence and prevention of AngHV-1.