Fowl adenoviruses (FAdVs) are infectious agents, mainly of chickens, which cause economic losses to the poultry industry. Only a single serotype, namely FAdV-5, constitutes the species Fowl aviadenovirus B (FAdV-B); however, recently, phylogenetic analyses have identified divergent strains of the species, implicating a more complex scenario and possibly a novel serotype. Therefore, field isolates of the species were collected to investigate the contemporary diversification within FAdV-B, including traditional serotyping. Full genomes of fourteen FAdV-B strains were sequenced and four strains, possessing discriminatory mutations in the antigenic domains, were compared using virus cross-neutralization. Essentially, strains with identical antigenic signatures to that of the first described divergent strain were found in the complete new dataset. While chicken antiserum against FAdV-5 reference strain 340 could not neutralize any of the newly isolated viruses, low homologous/heterologous titer ratios were measured reciprocally. Although they argue against a new serotype, our results indicate the emergence of escape variants in FAdV-B. Charge-influencing amino acid substitutions accounted for only a few mutations between the strains; still, these enabled one-way cross-neutralization only. These findings underline the continued merit of the cross-neutralization test as the gold standard for serotyping, complementary to advancing sequence data, and provide a snapshot of the actual diversity and evolution of species FAdV-B.

Inclusion-Body Hepatitis; Neutralizing Antibodies Target; Melting-Curve Analysis; Phylogenetic Analysis; Adenovirus; Sequence; Hexon; Classification; Saskatchewan; Diversity

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MDPI