Metagenomic screening reveals diverse avian viruses including a novel aveparvovirus in Eurasian goshawk chicks, suggesting dietary transmission from poultry feed.
Key Points
To characterize the gut-associated virome of captive Eurasian goshawk chicks utilized in falconry.
Collected cloacal swabs from 12 Eurasian goshawk chicks (N=12) during routine veterinary inspections.
Conducted metagenomic screening using high-throughput sequencing to detect and assemble viral genomes.
Detected sequences spanning six viral families (Poxviridae, Circoviridae, Anelloviridae, Retroviridae, Parvoviridae, and Astroviridae), varying across individual samples.
Reconstructed complete genomes for two chicken astroviruses (98.78% ORF2 amino acid identity) and a pigeon circovirus (98.96% nucleotide identity to a known reference strain).
Identified a 5,422-bp partial genome of a putative novel Aveparvovirus in an asymptomatic chick, showing 52.42% NS1 protein identity to silver pheasant parvovirus.