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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, September 1998, p. 2727-2729, Vol. 36, No. 9
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Detection of Rotavirus Types G8 and G10 among
Brazilian Children with Diarrhea
Norma
Santos,1,*
Rita C. C.
Lima,1
Cláudio F. A.
Pereira,2 and
Vera
Gouvea1
Departamento de Virologia, Instituto de
Microbiologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, RJ
21941-590,1 and
Departmento de
Microbiologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ
24.300-000,2 Brazil
Received 6 March 1998/Returned for modification 27 April
1998/Accepted 1 June 1998
 |
ABSTRACT |
Characterization of 49 rotavirus-positive stool specimens from
children with diarrhea in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1996 and 1997 revealed a great diversity of rotavirus G types. Conventional
types G1 and G3 accounted for 27 and 12% of the infections, respectively, whereas 60% of the infections were caused by
unconventional types G5 (25%), G10 (16%), and G8 (4%) and mixed G
types (16%).
| |
TEXT |
Rotavirus is the major cause of
acute diarrhea in children worldwide and an important cause of
infantile death in the developing world (12). The virus
belongs to the Reoviridae family and possesses a genome of
11 double-stranded RNA segments. Group A rotavirus is classified into G
and P types on the basis of the specificity of the VP7 and VP4
proteins, respectively, presented on the outer shell of the virus.
Among the 14 rotavirus G serotypes already described, 10 have been
recovered from humans. Serotypes G1 to G4 have been the most widespread
types and are consequently the targets for development of vaccines;
serotypes G5, G6, G8 to G10, and G12 have been less commonly found
(11). Serotype G5 has been recovered mostly from pigs and
less frequently from horses. However, the G5 serotype was recently
described as an important pathogen of humans in Brazil (7,
9). Serotypes G6, G8, and G10 are major pathogens in cattle and
have been sporadically recovered from humans (1, 4, 14, 15,
17). The present study is a follow-up of an epidemiological
survey performed in Brazil (9, 16). We report here the
results of a survey in two cities of the state of Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, in which rotavirus strains bearing type G8 and G10
specificities were detected. To our knowledge, this is the first report
of such rotavirus types in South America among either humans or
animals.
Forty-nine rotavirus-positive stool specimens from children under 5 years of age with acute diarrhea were collected between March 1996 and
December 1997 from three laboratories in the city of Rio de Janeiro and
from one laboratory in the neighboring city of Niterói. The four
centers attend patients with different educational and socioeconomical
backgrounds who live in neighborhoods with distinct levels of
sanitation. The samples were initially analyzed by polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis and/or latex agglutination for the presence of
rotavirus, and the rotavirus-positive specimens were further
characterized by a PCR-based typing assay for identification of the G
types (5, 6).
The distribution of the rotavirus G types detected in this study is
shown in Table 1. As in previous studies
in Brazil, no marked seasonality was observed, with rotavirus diarrhea
cases being detected year round (9, 16). Rotavirus type G1,
which is the most common serotype recovered from humans worldwide, was also the most prevalent in this survey, while type G3 was detected at a
lower frequency. The other common human rotavirus types, G2 and G4,
were not found. Type G5 was the second most prevalent of the serotypes
found. Interestingly, we found one G5 isolate that exhibited a short
electropherotype, different from the electropherotypes of other human
serotype G5 isolates described thus far (Fig.
1) (7, 9). Even though mixed
infections were detected in 16% of the specimens by reverse
transcription-PCR assay, none of those samples exhibited a number of
RNA bands in the electrophoresis profile that would suggest mixed
infection (i.e., more than 11), as shown for two specimens in Fig. 1.
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TABLE 1.
Distribution of rotavirus G types in the cities of
Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, RJ, Brazil, in 1996 and 1997
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FIG. 1.
Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of eight stool
specimens, with their respective G serotypes indicated, and the OSU
strain. S, short electropherotype; L, long electropherotype.
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Surprisingly, 15 rotavirus isolates (30.0%) from 14 specimens were
identified as type G8 or G10. Those types have not been described
previously in Brazil among either humans or animals. This finding added
two new types to the already complex pool of rotavirus strains that had
been found to circulate in Brazil (9). Rotavirus serotype G8
was first described as an agent of human diarrhea in Indonesia
(10). However, the frequency of detection of this
serotype as a human pathogen is still very low. Since the first
description of three rotavirus strains in Indonesia with a super-short
electropherotype bearing G8 specificity (10), very few
reports of such a serotype have been published. One European survey
detected six G8 isolates in Finland and one in Italy, all of them
exhibiting long electropherotypes (4). Another study, in
Nigeria, detected one type G8 isolate with a short electropherotype (1). Among animals, rotavirus type G8 has been detected in calves and, on at least one occasion, in pigs (6, 15). The animal isolates showed long electropherotypes. In Brazil, rotavirus type G8 was first recognized in a mixed infection with a G5 strain in
1996. In 1997 it was detected in two single infections and in one mixed
infection with a G10 strain. One of the single isolates exhibited a
short, but not super-short, electropherotype, while all of the others
exhibited long electropherotypes (Fig. 1). Those specimens were
provided by three different centers in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Rotavirus serotype G10 has been detected frequently among cattle and
occasionally among horses, pigs, and lambs (11, 14, 15). It
has also been detected among humans on a few occasions. A survey in
India detected rotavirus type G10 in asymptomatical infected children
(3). In Thailand, type G10 rotavirus was detected in a
single child with diarrhea (17). Furthermore, in a
seroepidemiological survey in Ecuador, 8% of sera from children who
underwent natural rotavirus exposure neutralized a serotype G10 strain
(2). We report herein the emergence of rotavirus G10 in
Brazil. Contrary to the previous studies, rotavirus serotype G10 was
detected in a high percentage (39%; eight single infections and three
mixed infections) of the Brazilian specimens obtained between April and
September 1997, all of which were from outpatients with moderate to
severe diarrhea. The diarrheal cases were apparently sporadic. One of
the isolates exhibited a short electropherotype, while the others
possessed long electropherotypes (Fig. 1), which reinforces the
hypothesis that the infections were caused by different variants
of type G10 rotavirus. The G10 isolates were detected among specimens
collected from three different centers in two cities, Rio de Janeiro
and Niterói. One of those centers is located in a wealthy
area of the city of Rio de Janeiro, whereas the other two centers are
located in middle-class areas of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói. No
serotype G10 isolate was detected in the fourth center, which attends a
poor population of a slum in Rio de Janeiro. During the same period,
infections with rotavirus serotypes G1, G3, and G5 were also
detected in those centers. These findings seem to indicate that
rotavirus type G10 is already widespread among the populations of
the two largest cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Further studies
will show whether rotavirus type G10 will become a prevalent serotype
among Brazilians, as happened with type G5 rotaviruses (9).
Evidence for animal-human rotavirus transmission has been reported on
several occasions (3, 16). In Brazil, previous studies have
revealed an enormous number of mixed infections with rotaviruses
bearing a wide range of G serotype specificities which are commonly
found in humans or animals (9, 16). Together, these events
may facilitate the emergence of rotavirus reassortants (8).
In this survey, all five different rotavirus G types detected (G1, G3,
G5, G8, and G10) were found in mixed infections. One of the serotype
G10 isolates exhibited a unique short electropherotype. It is possible
that this isolate is the product of a reassortment between a type G10
animal strain and a human strain, since short electropherotypes have
been almost exclusively found in human strains. However, further
studies are needed to verify this hypothesis.
This report emphasizes some important aspects of the diversity of
rotavirus strains in Brazil: it reports the presence of rotavirus types
G8 and G10 in the country and their association with diarrhea in
children; it describes the dissemination of those rotavirus types in
the populations of two cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro; and it
confirms the previous observation of a high frequency of mixed
infections, a fact that should facilitate the occurrence of natural
reassortment and, therefore, the amplification of rotavirus diversity
(8).
The rotavirus typing studies performed in Brazil have demonstrated an
extremely high diversity and complexity of G serotypes (9, 16). Nevertheless, a number of isolates have been left untyped, suggesting the possibility that they belong to
unconventional serotypes. Indeed, isolates with such unusual
serotypes were found in the present study. These findings may
explain, in part, the low level of protection achieved in a vaccine
trial in Brazil (13). Because the rotavirus vaccine
candidates currently being tested possess antigens for only types G1 to
G4, these data raise a critical concern about the efficacy of
such vaccines in situations similar to that in Brazil. They
may not offer protection against type G5, which has been shown to
be an epidemiologically important serotype in Brazil (9,
16), or against type G10, which appears to be emerging in Rio de
Janeiro and may become an established serotype in the Brazilian
population. Furthermore, these data reinforce the need for a continuous
laboratory surveillance of rotavirus types in order to identify the
most common ones circulating in different populations and to detect the
introduction of new rotavirus types.
| |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
We thank Luíz Otoni, Giovani C. V. Costa, and Maria
Odete O. Carvalho for supplying the stool samples used in this study.
This work was partially supported by CNPq, FINEP, FUJB, and FAPERJ,
Brazil, and the TWAS, Italy.
| |
FOOTNOTES |
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Departamento de
Virologia, Instituto de Microbiologia, Universidade Federal do
Rio de Janeiro, Cidade Universitária
CCSBl. IIlha do
Fundão, P.O. Box 68040, Rio de Janeiro 21941-590, Brazil. Phone:
21-260-9311. Fax: 21-560-8344. E-mail:
IMVINOS{at}MICROBIO.UFRJ.BR.
| |
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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, September 1998, p. 2727-2729, Vol. 36, No. 9
0095-1137/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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