Ultrastructural characteristics of the blood cells of chickens commonly reared under backyard poultry farming in Mizoram, India.

The present study was undertaken to characterize the ultrastructural morphology of the blood cells of commonly reared chickens in the state of Mizoram, India under backyard poultry farming. For this study, 2 ml of whole blood was aseptically collected from the wings veins of 12 chickens of three different breeds namely the Zoar, Aseel and Rhode Island Red and processed for ultrastructural imaging under standard protocols. Under scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the matured erythrocytes of Zoar, Aseel and Rhode Island Red appeared elliptical in shape while the leukocytes and thrombocytes appeared round in shape with variable surface modifications. Under transmission electron microscopy (TEM) the granules of the heterophils of Zoar, Aseel and Rhode Island Red appeared predominantly fusiform in shape, the granules of the eosinophils appeared round in shape and that of the basophils appeared pleomorphic in shape. The cytoplasm of the monocytes, medium-to-large lymphocytes and thrombocytes of Zoar, Aseel and Rhode Island Red under TEM appeared to be vacuolated and granular while that of the small lymphocytes appeared to be granular but non-vacuolated. The study concluded that the ultrastructural characteristics of the blood cells of the three breeds of chicken studied were almost similar to the blood cells of other birds reported earlier.

Duck gut viral metagenome analysis captures snapshot of viral diversity.

BACKGROUND: Ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) an economically important waterfowl for meat, eggs and feathers; is also a natural reservoir for influenza A viruses. The emergence of novel viruses is attributed to the status of co-existence of multiple types and subtypes of viruses in the reservoir hosts. For effective prediction of future viral epidemic or pandemic an in-depth understanding of the virome status in the key reservoir species is highly essential. METHODS: To obtain an unbiased measure of viral diversity in the enteric tract of ducks by viral metagenomic approach, we deep sequenced the viral nucleic acid extracted from cloacal swabs collected from the flock of 23 ducks which shared the water bodies with wild migratory birds. RESULT: In total 7,455,180 reads with average length of 146 bases were generated of which 7,354,300 reads were de novo assembled into 24,945 contigs with an average length of 220 bases and the remaining 100,880 reads were singletons. The duck virome were identified by sequence similarity comparisons of contigs and singletons (BLASTx E score, <10(-3)) against viral reference database. Numerous duck virome sequences were homologous to the animal virus of the Papillomaviridae family; and phages of the Caudovirales, Inoviridae, Tectiviridae, Microviridae families and unclassified phages. Further, several duck virome sequences had homologous with the insect viruses of the Poxviridae, Alphatetraviridae, Baculoviridae, Densovirinae, Iflaviridae and Dicistroviridae families; and plant viruses of the Secoviridae, Virgaviridae, Tombusviridae and Partitiviridae families, which reflects the diet and habitation of ducks. CONCLUSION: This study increases our understanding of the viral diversity and expands the knowledge about the spectrum of viruses harboured in the enteric tract of ducks.