To characterize the variant porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and lay the foundation for prevention and control of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED),a variant PEDV strainCH/YNKM8/2013 was isolated in 2013 in China.The strain was identified by cytopathic effects (CPEs),RTPCR,IFA,and transmission electron microscope (TEM).The genome sequence of it was sequenced by segmented amplification method and was deposited at GenBank under the accession number of KF761675.1.The Nterminal of S gene of CH/YNKM8/2013 was 9 bp longer than that of CV777 strain,including 15 bp insertions and 6 bp deletions,which suggested that CH/YNKM8/2013 was a variant PEDV strain.The CH/YNKM8/2013 had high sequence similarity of 99.6% with the Chinese strain LC (isolated in 2011 in Guangdong province),of 99.0% with the Korea strain KNU1305 and the USA strain USA/Minnesota84/2013 and a lower sequence similarity of 96.7% with the vaccine strainCV777,respectively.The phylogenetic analysis showed that CH/YNKM8/2013 was clustered into the same group with Chinese,South Korea and USA variant PEDV strains,while it was clustered into different branch with former Chinese classical PEDV strains and the vaccine strainCV777.