Tongling Shan, Shixing Yang, Haoning Wang, Hao Wang, Ju Zhang, Ga Gong, Yuqing Xiao, Jie Yang, Xiaolong Wang, Juan Lu, Min Zhao, Zijun Yang, Xiang Lu, Ziyuan Dai, Yumin He, Xu Chen, Rui Zhou, Yuxin Yao, Ning Kong, Jian Zeng, Kalim Ullah, Xiaochun Wang, Quan Shen, Xutao Deng, Jianmin Zhang, Eric Delwart, Guangzhi Tong, Wen Zhang
BACKGROUND: Wild birds may harbor and transmit viruses that are potentially pathogenic to humans, domestic animals, and other wildlife. RESULTS: Using the viral metagenomic approach, we investigated the virome of cloacal swab specimens collected from 3182 birds (the majority of them wild species) consisting of > 87 different species in 10 different orders within the Aves classes. The virus diversity in wild birds was higher than that in breeding birds. We acquired 707 viral genomes from 18 defined families and 4 unclassified virus groups, with 265 virus genomes sharing < 60% protein sequence identities with their best matches in GenBank comprising new virus families, genera, or species...
April 12, 2022: Microbiome