| dc.identifier.citation | Mustafa Ozan Atasoy1 · Hakan Isidan1 · Turhan Turan1
Received: 26 March 2021 / Accepted: 24 February 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022
Abstract
Calf diarrhoea is one of the major problems in cattle farming with high morbidity and mortality in herds. Two enteric viruses,
bovine rotavirus (BRV) and bovine coronavirus (BCoV), are the leading cause of gastroenteritis in young calves, whereas
picobirnaviruses (PBVs) are often associated with diarrhoea. In the present study, the faecal specimens of 127 diarrhoeic
bovines (less than 1-month-old) were employed to investigate the infection frequencies of these three pathogens. Results
indicated that frequencies of BRV and BCoV in diarrhoeic calves were 38.58% and 29.92%, respectively. The 7.08% of
bovine calf samples (9 out of 127) were found to be positive for PBV genogroup I. Sequence analysis further revealed the
high genetic heterogeneity within representative PBV sequences. Additionally, both PBV-BCoV (n=2) and BCoV-BRVPBV (n=1) co-infections were detected in bovine calves for the frst time. Consequently, our fndings pointed out the highly
divergent nature of PBVs without regard to exact host or territory and the occasional co-existence with other enteric agents.
Keywords Co-infection · Coronavirus · Molecular analysis · Picobirnavirus · Rotavirus
Introduction
Picobirnaviruses (PBVs) are recently emergent viruses
that were frst discovered in human and rat stools by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) in the late 1980s
(Pereira et al., 1988a, 1988b). Since then, the virus has
been reported in a number of species, both with and without
symptoms, including domestic and wild mammals (Takiuchi et al., 2016; Navarro et al., 2017; Malik et al., 2018),
avians (Ribeiro Silva et al., 2014; Masachessi et al., 2015;
Verma et al., 2015) and reptiles (Fregolente et al., 2009).
PBVs have been defned as opportunistic enteric—and less
likely—respiratory pathogens of animals. PBVs are mostly
bi-segmented, double-stranded RNA viruses, classified
under the Picobirnaviridae family (Delmas et al., 2019).
Segment 1 (L gene) has an RNA structure 2.2 to 2.7 kbp in
length and encodes viral capsid proteins, while the 1.2–1.9
kbp segment 2 (S gene) expresses RNA-dependent RNA
polymerase (RdRp), which is crucial for genome replication
(Kattoor et al., 2016; Malik et al., 2017). Recently, eforts
have been made to characterise the highly divergent family Picobirnaviridae, and segment 2-based classifcation has
been the most widely utilised approach (Knox et al., 2018).
According to this method, PBVs fall into two main genogroups (GI–II), and so far, the majority of known strains
have been classifed into the GI genogroups (Malik et al.,
2014b, 2014a, 2017).
PBVs have been reported to be involved in multiple
infections, with astroviruses, adenoviruses, sapoviruses
and rotaviruses identifed in humans (Bhattacharya et al.,
2007; Giordano et al., 2008; Vu et al., 2019), with the latter
also shown to be a common pathogen in co-infections in
pigs (Pongsuwanna et al., 1996) and monkeys (Wang et al.,
2007). A recent study further demonstrated the co-occurrence of rotaviruses and PBVs in wild birds (Serra et al.,
2020). Despite strong evidence, simultaneous PBV infections with other enteric viruses have not been defnitively
identifed in cattle. Bovine rotaviruses have been shown to
be a common pathogen in PBV infections (Buzinaro et al.,
2003; Mondal et al., 2013; Malik et al., 2014b). Bovine
* Turhan Turan
tturan@cumhuriyet.edu.tr
Mustafa Ozan Atasoy
mozan@cumhuriyet.edu.tr
Hakan Isidan
hisidan@cumhuriyet.edu.tr
1 Department of Veterinary Virology, Faculty of Veterinary
Medicine, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, 58140 Sivas,
Turkey
/ Published onlin | tr |
| dc.description.abstract | Calf diarrhoea is one of the major problems in cattle farming with high morbidity and mortality in herds. Two enteric viruses, bovine rotavirus (BRV) and bovine coronavirus (BCoV), are the leading cause of gastroenteritis in young calves, whereas picobirnaviruses (PBVs) are often associated with diarrhoea. In the present study, the faecal specimens of 127 diarrhoeic bovines (less than 1-month-old) were employed to investigate the infection frequencies of these three pathogens. Results indicated that frequencies of BRV and BCoV in diarrhoeic calves were 38.58% and 29.92%, respectively. The 7.08% of bovine calf samples (9 out of 127) were found to be positive for PBV genogroup I. Sequence analysis further revealed the high genetic heterogeneity within representative PBV sequences. Additionally, both PBV-BCoV (n = 2) and BCoV-BRV-PBV (n = 1) co-infections were detected in bovine calves for the first time. Consequently, our findings pointed out the highly divergent nature of PBVs without regard to exact host or territory and the occasional co-existence with other enteric agents. | tr |
