Typing of field isolates of infectious bronchitis virus based on the sequence of the hypervariable region in the S1 gene

Department of Avian Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.

A universal primer set was developed that amplifies a region covering hypervariable region (HVR) 1 and HVR 2 in the S1 gene of the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV). The universality of this primer set was confirmed by testing the reference strains of different serotypes or variants of the IBV present in the United States. An approximately 450-bp region containing HVR 1 and HVR 2 of 7 untyped field isolates obtained in 1999 and 2000 was amplified. Direct sequencing followed by phylogenetic analysis on that region allowed us to type those field isolates that were not typable by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Furthermore, it was found that typing by phylogenetic analysis of that region correlates with virus neutralization results. Together with RT-PCR and RFLP, this method will serve as a fast typing method for IBV diagnosis.