We have previously described the development of a onetube SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR assay for the detection and quantitation of infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) in various biological samples. The twofold aim of the present study was to verify that the optimized SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR conditions could detect ISAV isolates of different geographic origins, and to analyze the growth patterns of the selected ISAV isolates in the Chinook head salmon embryo (CHSE) -214 cells by this assay to better characterize their CHSE-phenotypes. A total of 24 ISAV isolates were used in this study. The results indicated that the SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR could detect ISAV of different geographic origins or laboratory sources. The capacity of ISAV isolates to cause cytopathic effects (CPE) in the CHSE-214 cell line, viral titration of the infected CHSE-cell harvests, and analysis of viral RNA levels in CHSE-214 cells at post-infection day zero, 7 and 14 by SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR confirmed the existence of three CHSE-phenotypes of ISAV: replicating cytopathic, replicating non-cytopathic, and non-replicating non-cytopathic. The identification of these three CHSE- phenotypes of ISAV has important implications from diagnostic and biological points of view.