Genotyping and pathogenicity of fowl adenovirus isolated from broiler chickens in Egypt

BACKGROUND: Over the past 10 years, inclusion body hepatitis outbreaks, essentially from commercial broiler flocks, have been detected in different geographic regions highlighting the wide distribution of FAdVs around the world resulting in serious economic losses due to increased mortalities as well as poor performance within poultry farms in Assiut province, Egypt. Thus, this study was achieved to detect fowl adenovirus in broiler chicken flocks in Assiut province, Egypt and to recognize the pathogenicity of the isolated virus. RESULTS: The phylogeny of the L1 loop of the hexon gene exposed that the isolated virus clustered and belonged to the reference strains serotype D FAdV. The isolated virus is closely related to inclusion body hepatitis (IBH) strains causing extensive economic losses. The pathogenicity study of the virus showed typical macroscopic lesions with 6% mortality; furthermore, histopathological inspection exhibited severe hepatitis and degenerative changes after 5d from infection in the immune system. CONCLUSION: Results in this research support the primary pathogenicity and mortality caused by FADV serotype 2 (IBH) alone without immunosuppressive agents thus robust control measures should be implanted against FAdV to evade the serious economic losses in poultry farms.