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Epidemiological characterization of VNNV in hatchery-reared and wild marine fish on Hainan Island, China, and experimental infection of golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus) juveniles

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Abstract

The current epidemiological situation of viral nervous necrosis virus (VNNV) on Hainan Island was investigated. A total of 490 hatchery-reared fish and 652 wild fish were sampled for VNNV detection from March 2013 to May 2014. Positive detection rates of 84.53 % (153/181) and 0.97 % (3/309) were obtained in diseased and healthy hatchery-reared samples, respectively, by conventional RT-PCR. However, using more-sensitive nested RT-PCR, the positive detection rates in healthy hatchery-reared fish reached up to 64.08 % (198/309), suggesting that asymptomatic VNNV carriers commonly exist among larvae and juveniles breeding on Hainan Island. In wild-fish samples, 2.6 % (17/652) and 34.2 % (223/652) positive detection rates were observed using RT-PCR and nested RT-PCR, respectively, indicating that wild fish may be a potential reservoir for VNNV. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all 52 VNNV isolates from cultured fish belong to the RGNNV genotype, but 2 out of 48 VNNV isolates from wild fish samples were found to be of the SJNNV genotype. This study is the first to confirm the existence of SJNNV-genotype VNNV in China. Golden pompano, an important fish species for culture, was selected as a fish model to investigate the optimal conditions for RGNNV disease progression in artificial infection experiments. The effects of temperature, salinity, and fish size were evaluated. Results showed that 28 °C and 20 ‰ are the optimal infection temperature and salinity, respectively, and golden pompano juveniles with small body sizes are more susceptible to RGNNV. These findings are highly consistent with those conditions involved in the natural outbreak of RGNNV.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Peimao Chen and Peiwen Liang from South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute for identification of wild fishes species. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Junfeng Xie at the School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, for kindly providing rabbit anti-VNNV-CP serum. This research was supported by Key Project of Hainan Provincial Science and Technology under number ZDXM20120031, Special Funds of Guangdong Provincial Fiscal Fish Disease Prevention and Control (2012), Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2013B020307008), the Natural Science Foundation of China (31372563), and the Joint Science and Technology Project of SANYA (2011YD09). The nucleotide sequences of threadfin porgy NNV CP genes have been submitted to the NCBI database under GenBank accession number KP994911.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Key Laboratory of Aquatic Product Processing, Ministry of Agriculture, South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou, 510300, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

      Hongling Ma, Weigeng Wen, Youlu Su, Juan Feng, Liwen Xu, Chao Peng & Zhixun Guo

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    1. Hongling Ma
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    2. Weigeng Wen
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    Correspondence to Zhixun Guo.

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    H. Ma and W. Wen contributed equally to this work.

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    Ma, H., Wen, W., Su, Y. et al. Epidemiological characterization of VNNV in hatchery-reared and wild marine fish on Hainan Island, China, and experimental infection of golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus) juveniles. Arch Virol 160, 2979–2989 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-015-2590-0

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