Chicken anemia virus (CAV) is the main pathogen of chicken infectious anemia (CIA). It is widespread all over the world and becomes one of the main pathogens affecting poultry industry seriously. CAV genome contains three partially overlapped genes, vp1, vp2 and vp3, which encode three kinds of proteins, VP1, VP2 and VP3, respectively. VP1 related to its antigenicity is the only capsid protein of CAV; VP2 might act as a scaffold protein to help VP1 form correct conformation; and VP3, also named apoptin, is related to the pathogenicity of CAV, and is proved by some experimental data to have low acute toxicity and is effective as an anti-tumor agent. According to the molecular biological progression of CAV research, three questions reviewed in this paper are (1) the classification status of CAV, (2) CAV genomic structure, and (3) the encoded proteins (VP1, VP2 and VP3) of CAV genome. Ref
