Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) is an immunosuppressive pathogen causing enormous economic losses to the poultry industry across the globe. As a double-stranded RNA virus, IBDV undergoes genetic mutation or recombination in replication during circulation among flocks, leading to the generation and spread of variant or recombinant strains. In particular, the recent emergence of variant IBDV causes severe immunosuppression in chickens, affecting the efficacy of other vaccines. It seems that the genetic mutation of IBDV during the battle against host response is an effective strategy to help itself to survive. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the viral genome diversity will definitely help to develop effective measures for prevention and control of infectious bursal disease (IBD). In recent years, considerable progress has been made in understanding the relation of genetic mutation and genomic recombination of IBDV to its pathogenesis using the reverse genetic technique. Therefore, this review focuses on our current genetic insight into the IBDV's genetic typing and viral genomic variation.
Keywords: genetic evolutionary typing; infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV); reverse genetic; viral genome diversity.