The genetic organisation of the 24 duck circovirus (DuCV) strains detected in commercial Pekin ducks from South Korea between 2011 and 2012 is described in a study at Chonbuk National University.

S-Y. Chang and colleagues report in Poultry Science that they performed a multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analyses on the 24 viral genome sequences as well as on 45 genome sequences available from the GenBank database.

Phylogenetic analyses based on the genomic and open reading frame 2/cap sequences demonstrated that all DuCV strains belonged to genotype 1 and were designated in a sub-cluster under genotype 1.

Analysis of the capsid protein amino acid sequences of the 24 Korean DuCV strains showed 10 substitutions compared with that of other genotype 1 strains.

The Jeonju-based researchers concluded that genotype 1 is predominant and circulating in South Korea.

They add that their results serve as incentive to add more data to the DuCV database and provide insight to conduct further intensive study on the geographic relationships among these virus strains.

Reference

Cha S-Y., M. Kang, J-G. Cho and H-K. Jang. 2013. Genetic analysis of duck circovirus in Pekin ducks from South Korea. Poult. Sci. 92(11):2886-2891. doi: 10.3382/ps.2013-03331