Prevalence of Korean cats with natural feline coronavirus infections

Abstract

Background: Feline coronavirus is comprised of two pathogenic biotypes consisting of feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) and feline enteric coronavirus (FECV), which are both divided into two serotypes. To examine the prevalence of Korean cats infected with feline coronavirus (FCoV) type I and II, fecal samples were obtained from 212 cats (107 pet and 105 feral) in 2009.

Results: Fourteen cats were FCoV-positive, including infections with type I FCoV (n = 8), type II FCoV (n = 4), and types I and II co-infection (n = 2). Low seroprevalences (13.7%, 29/212) of FCoV were identified in chronically ill cats (19.3%, 16/83) and healthy cats (10.1%, 13/129).

Conclusions: Although the prevalence of FCoV infection was not high in comparison to other countries, there was a higher prevalence of type I FCoV in Korean felines. The prevalence of FCoV antigen and antibody in Korean cats are expected to gradually increase due to the rising numbers of stray and companion cats.

Figure 1

Distribution of immunoflurorecent assay (IFA) titers to FCoV among cats. IFA titers are expressed as the reciprocal value of the highest dilution. On the left half are chronically ill cats and on the right half are healthy cats.

Figure 2

Phylogenetic relationships between partial spike gene sequences of 46 coronaviruses. The samples were comprised of 16 FCoVs from Korea, 23 FCoVs from around the world, five CCoVs, one RDCoV, and one CFBCoV. All sequences except the 16 FCoV sequences derived from the current study (in boldface) were obtained from GenBank. An unrooted phylogenetic tree was constructed from aligned sequences by the neighbor-joining (NJ) method using MEGA 4.0 software. Bootstrap percentages are shown above those branches that are supported in at least 60% of the 1,000 replicates. Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.