LAUSR

Geese play an important role in agricultural economics, with China producing the vast majority of goose meat consumed worldwide annually. The variations in the avian viruses and co-infections, resulting in substantial economic losses to the goose industry in China. To understand the evolutionary characteristics and co-infections of viruses, a broad epidemiological investigation of epizootic viruses of goose was carried out in nine provinces of China during 2018-2021. Here, the results indicated that, among the 1970 clinical samples, 50.81% (1001/1970) were positive for goose astrovirus (GAstV), avian orthoreovirus (ARV) in 18.22% (359/1970), goose parvovirus (GPV) in 12.74% (251/1970), H9N2 subtype avian influenza virus (AIV) in 11.02% (217/1970), Newcastle disease virus (NDV) in 4.01% (79/1970) and fowl adenovirus (FAdV) in 2.08% (41/1970). Among the six viruses, co-infections comprised a large proportion (66.37%) in the field, of which the dual infection was more common. Additionally, phylogenetic analysis of GAstVs indicated that Chinese GAstVs had formed two distinct groups, i.e., GAstV-1 and GAstV-2. GAstV-2 sub-genotype Ⅱ-c had arisen as the dominant genotype in the whole country. Notably, all the H9N2-AIV isolated strains harboured the mammalian adaptation markers I155T, H183N, and Q226L (H3 numbering) in the HA gene, which promotes preferential binding to human-like α2-6-linked sialic acid receptors. And beyond that, we determined the goose-origin Muscovy Duck Reovirus (MDRV) isolates, showing 51.7%-96% similarities to that of other waterfowl-origin orthoreovirus isolates in sequence homology analysis of the representative part of σC, is a new variant of waterfowl-origin orthoreovirus. These data provide valuable information about the prevalence of infectious diseases in geese on mainland China. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.