Abstract
BackgroundBocaviruses have been reported to cause respiratory tract infection and gastroenteritis in most animal species. In cats, different genotype bocaviruses have been identified in USA, Japan, Hong Kong and Portugal. However, the clear relationship between the clinical symptoms and FBoV infection is unknown, and the prevalence of FBoV and the distribution of FBoV genotypes in China are still unclear.ResultsIn this study, 197 fecal samples from cats with diarrhea (n = 105) and normal cats (n = 92) were collected in different regions between January 2016 and November 2017 and investigated using PCR targeting different FBoV genotypes. Screening results showed that 51 of 197 samples (25.9%) were positive for FBoV, and a higher positive rate was observed in cats with diarrhea (33.3%, 35/105) than in normal cats (17.4%, 16/92). Of these FBoV-positive samples, 35 were identified as FBoV-1, 12 as FBoV-2 and 4 as coinfection of FBoV-1 and FBoV-2. A phylogenetic analysis based on partial NS1 gene indicated that 24 sequences from randomly selected FBoV-positive samples were divided into 2 different FBoV groups: FBoV-1 and FBoV-2. Furthermore, 6 strains were randomly selected, and the complete genome was sequenced and analyzed. These strains exhibited the typical genome organization of bocavirus and were closely related to FBoV. Two FBoV-2 identified strains shared high homologies with FBoV-2 reference strains based on the complete genome and entire encoding gene, but lower identities were exhibited in the NP1 and VP1 regions for the other 4 FBoV-1 identified strains compared with FBoV-1 reference strains.ConclusionThese findings demonstrate that genetically diverse FBoV-1 and FBoV-2 widely circulate in cats in Northeast China and that FBoV-1 is more prevalent. The high prevalence of FBoV in cats with diarrhea symptoms suggests that FBoV infection may be associated with diarrhea in cats.
Highlights
Bocaviruses have been reported to cause respiratory tract infection and gastroenteritis in most animal species
The high prevalence of feline bocavirus (FBoV) in cats with diarrhea symptoms suggests that FBoV infection may be associated with diarrhea in cats
Detection of FBoVs in fecal samples Out of 197 fecal samples, 51 (25.9%) samples were identified to be positive for FBoV using three pairs of specific primers for different FBoV genotypes
Summary
Bocaviruses have been reported to cause respiratory tract infection and gastroenteritis in most animal species. The clear relationship between the clinical symptoms and FBoV infection is unknown, and the prevalence of FBoV and the distribution of FBoV genotypes in China are still unclear. Abundant previous research has reported that different clinical symptoms are caused by bocaviruses in homologous hosts. HBoV has been found to cause gastroenteritis in children in recent reports [13]. Respiratory tract symptoms and diarrhea have been reported in weanling piglets infected with PBoV [8, 14]. Recent reports showed that the genome of CBoV has been detected in the respiratory tract, feces, lymphonodus, liver and blood of dogs, suggesting that CBoV could cause systemic infections in dogs [16, 17]
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