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

• Published in: Viruses
• Main Authors: Rui Guo, Zheng Zhang, Tianliang He, Miaomiao Li, Yuchen Zhuo, Xiaoqiang Yang, Haiping Fan, Xinhua Chen
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022
• Subjects: Anguillid herpesvirus 1; AngHV-1-FC; American eel ( Anguilla rostrate ); pathogenicity; genomic analysis; European eel
• Online Access: https://doi.org/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 (Anguilla rostrata), 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.