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Background Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus within the family Togaviridae, which has attracted global attention due to its recent re-emergence. In one of our previous studies, we successfully isolated two CHIKV virus strains, SZ1050 and SZ1239, from the serum samples of two imported patients in 2010 and 2012, respectively. However, the differences in their genome characters and cell tropisms remain undefined. Methods We extracted the RNA of two CHIKV isolates and performed PCR to determine the sequence of the whole viral genomes. The genotypes were classified by phylogenetic analysis using the Mega 6.0 software. Furthermore, the cell tropisms of the two CHIKV isolates were evaluated in 13 cell lines. Results The lengths of the whole genomes for SZ1050 and SZ1239 were 11,844 nt and 12,000 nt, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that SZ1050 belonged to the Indian Ocean lineage (IOL), while SZ1239 was of the Asian lineage. Comparing to the prototype strain S27, a gap of 7 aa in the nsP3 gene and missing of one repeated sequence element (RSE) in the 3’ UTR were observed in SZ1239. The E1-A226V mutation was not detected in both strains. SZ1050 and SZ1239 could infect most of the evaluated mammalian epithelial cells. The K562 cells were permissive for both SZ1050 and SZ1239 while the U937 cells were refractory to both viruses. For Aedes cell lines C6/36 and Aag-2, both SZ1050 and SZ1239 were able to infect and replicate efficiently. Conclusions Compared to the prototype S27 virus, some deletions and mutations were found in the genomes of SZ1050 and SZ1239. Both viruses were susceptible to most evaluated epithelia or fibroblast cells and Aedes cell lines including C6/36 and Aag-2 in spite of marginal difference. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12985-018-1024-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.