Lagan Tregaskis, PaulaDevaney, RyanSmyth, Victoria2021-02-162021-02-162021-02-03Lagan Tregaskis, P., Devaney, R. and Smyth, V. J. (2021) ‘The First Whole Genome Sequence and Characterisation of Avian Nephritis Virus Genotype 3’, Viruses. MDPI AG, 13(2), p. 235. doi: 10.3390/v13020235.1999-4915https://doi.org/10.3390/v13020235Publication history: Accepted - 27 January 2021; Published - 3 February 2021.Avian nephritis virus (ANV) is classified in the Avastroviridae family with disease associations with nephritis, uneven flock growth and runting stunting syndrome (RSS) in chicken and turkey flocks, and other avian species. The whole genome of ANV genotype 3 (ANV-3) of 6959 nucleotides including the untranslated 5’ and 3’ regions and polyadenylated tail was detected in a metagenomic virome investigation of RSS-affected chicken broiler flocks. This report characterises the ANV-3 genome, identifying partially overlapping open reading frames (ORFs), ORF1a and ORF1b, and an opposing secondary pseudoknot prior to a ribosomal frameshift stemloop structure, with a separate ORF2, whilst observing conserved astrovirus motifs. Phylogenetic analysis of the Avastroviridae whole genome and ORF2 capsid polyprotein classified the first complete whole genome of ANV-3 within Avastroviridae genogroup 2.en© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).avian nephritis virusastrovirusphylogeneticsmolecular characterisationgenotyping and recombinationArticle