Postmortem findings
The gross lesions observed during postmortem of the broiler chickens revealed accumulation of fluid in pericardial sac and necrotic liver with petechial haemorrhages, enlargement and congestion of spleen, pale and swollen kidneys (Fig 1). Similar postmortem lesions of hepatomegaly with hepatic necrosis and marked atrophy of thymus and splenomegaly were reported by
(Thabet et al., 2023).
Molecular prevalence of FAdVs
A total of 105 (52.5%) out of 200 samples were positive for the hexon gene of fowl adenovirus, yielding an amplicon size of 897 bp (Fig 2). The prevalence was higher in broiler chickens between 21-42 days of age in comparison to other age groups. Lower prevalence was noted in the 8-21 days old and above 42 days old age groups. Similar results were reported by
Kumar et al., (2022), who reported a 60% prevalence of FAdVs in commercial broiler chickens.
Shankar et al., (2022) and
Chavan et al., (2023) reported a prevalence of 42.85% and 48.28% of FAdV in broiler chickens in India.
Niczyporuk et al., (2022) and
Santander-Parra et al., (2023) reported a prevalence rate of 57.71% and 56.16% of FAdV in chicken flocks.
Mittal et al., (2014) reported a higher prevalence of (82.5%) of FAdVs in poultry flocks. The broiler chickens in the present study were not vaccinated against fowl adenovirus, therefore greater prevalence of inclusion body hepatitis was observed.
Phylogenetic analysis
Phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences revealed that 14 of the representative sequences (FAdV-MT-02-2023, FAdV-BA-06-2023, FAdV-GO-19-2023, FAdV-KH-22-2023, FAdV-PI-29-2023, FAdV-KA-35-2023, FAdV-NC-48-2023, FAdV-KO-55-2023, FAdV-U-57-2023, FAdV-UM-67-2023, FAdV-WA-72-2023, FAdV-KD-79-2023, FAdV-MO-84-2023, FAdV-SO-86-2023) showed (98.44-99.88%) sequence identity to the serotype 11 of FAdV-D species (Accession no. OR690111.1(India), Accession no. PQ466432.1 (India), Accession no. MH379242.1 (India), Accession no. MH379244.1 (India), Accession no. PP982456.1 (Pakistan), Accession no. MN447717.1 (India), Accession no. PQ466435.1 (India), Accession no. MN540444.1 (India), Accession no. Accession no. OR371950.1 (India), Accession no. MN537891.1 (India), and Accession no. PQ466431.1 (India), whereas 01 nucleotide sequence (FAdV-BE-43-2023) showed 99.17% sequence identity to the 8b serotype of FAdV-E species (Accession no. MH379248.1 (India), Accession no. MW735942.1 (China) and Accession no. ON959146.1 (China) (Fig 3). The fowl adenovirus strains in the present study were closely clustered with the previously reported FAdV-11 serotypes from India and Pakistan. One FAdV strain in the present study was distantly placed and closely clustered with the FAdV 8b serotype from China. These findings indicate that FAdV-11 is predominant in cases of IBH in Nagpur, however, serotype 8b is also circulating in the affected broiler chickens.
Shankar et al., (2022) and
Sharif et al., (2020) also reported the highest prevalence of FAdV 11 in broiler chickens, followed closely by FAdV 8b. Serotypes 11 and 8b have the potential to be pathogenic and can cause serious clinical disease (
Shankar et al., 2022). There have been reports of increased morbidity and mortality in broiler chickens due to FAdV 11 (
Islam et al., 2023). The FAdV 11 and 8b serotypes of the present study showed 98.45%-99.88% nucleotide identity among themselves, indicating the distinctness of the viruses from one another. Several previous studies have reported that the main serotypes responsible for causing inclusion body hepatitis belonged to fowl adenovirus D and E
(Schachner et al., 2016; Wibowo et al., 2019; Islam et al., 2023). Additionally, studies have shown that the FAdV 8b serotype has emerged as the main cause of IBH in chickens with extensive tissue tropism and lower mortality (
Huang et al., 2019). Indian poultry industry thrives on the importation of chickens, eggs, feed, poultry machinery,
etc., from several countries where FAdV outbreaks have been recorded previously. The close clustering of FAdV strains from this study to the strains reported from Pakistan and China could be due to the aforementioned factors.
Amino acid identity matrix
In the present study, the deduced amino acids showed 87.26-100% sequence identity with other between isolates. The amino acid sequences of FAdV-PI-29-2023, FAdV-KA-35-2023, FAdV-WA-72-2023, FAdV-MT-02-2023, FAdV-SO-86-2023 FAdV-UM-67-2023, FAdV-KO-55-2023 and FAdV-BA-06-2023 showed higher homology (96.3-100%) among themselves and with other global sequences in comparison to FAdV-U-57-2023, FAdV-KH-22-2023, FAdV-NC-48-2023, FAdV-MO-84-2023 and FAdV-GO-19-2023 which showed less similarity (87.26-94.3%) (Fig 4). The amino acid sequences showed higher homology with to FAdV-11 isolates. Similar results by
(Xie et al., 2022) reported amino acid sequence identity of 89.5-98.6% among hexon gene sequences of FAdVs.