Isolation and identification of four infectious bronchitis virus strains in China and analyses of their S1 glycoprotein gene

Between 2003 and 2005, four strains of infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) were isolated from the vaccinated chicken flocks in China. The results from chicken embryo cross-neutralization assays showed that all the four isolates were relative to strain A2 of IBV, which was isolated in 1996 in Beijing and related to strain 4/91. The S1 gene of the spike protein was amplified and sequenced. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence of the S1 gene had a similar degree of identity (88.98–99.28%) among the four Chinese IBV isolates. The identity of the S1 protein gene between the four Chinese IBV isolates and 14 strains of other IBVs varied from 70.06 to 81.59%. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that there are at least four groups of IBVs circulating in China and the disease outbreaks might have been caused by infection of multiple strains of IBV.