Molecular Epidemiology of Contemporary G2P[4] Human Rotaviruses Cocirculating in a Single U.S. Community: Footprints of a Globally Transitioning Genotype

Abstract

Group IMPORTANCELittle is known about the diversity of cocirculating G2 rotaviruses and how their evolution may undermine the effectiveness of rotavirus vaccines. To expand our understanding of the potential genetic range exhibited by rotaviruses circulating in postvaccine communities, we analyzed part of a collection of rotaviruses recovered from pediatric patients in the United States from 2010 to 2011. Examining the genetic makeup of these viruses revealed they represented three segregated groups that did not exchange genetic material. The distinction between these three groups may be explained by three separate introductions. By comparing a specific gene, namely, VP7, of the recent rotavirus isolates to those from a collection recovered from U.S. children between 1974 and 1991 and other globally circulating rotaviruses, we were able to reconstruct the timing of events that shaped their ancestry. This analysis indicates that G2 rotaviruses are continuously evolving, accumulating changes in their genetic material as they infect new patients.

Prevalence and genomic characterization of G2P[4] group A rotavirus strains during monovalent vaccine introduction in Brazil

“…Strains RVA/Human-wt/BRA/ SC19868/2011/G2P [4] (for VP1) and RVA/Human-wt/BRA/ ES16238/2009/G2P [4] (for VP3) showed close phylogenetic relationship with RVA/Goat-tc/BGD/GO34/1999/G6P[1] animal strain (97% identity). Similar results were recently described for G2P [4] RVA strains detected in USA and Italy (Dennis et al, 2014;Giammanco et al, 2014). As happens in other countries, available data regarding animal RVA strains is still poor and make it difficult to study the origin of this kind of animal-like genome segment incorporation into human RVA strains.…”

“…4 and 5) suggesting the occurrence of reassortment events among strains. This discrepancy with the results from Dennis et al (2014) and results obtained in our study might be related with the fact that samples analyzed in the current study were detected in different Brazilian regions, sometimes geographically distant, and strains detected during a relatively long time period were analyzed (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011). On the other hand, similar results regarding NSP4 and VP3 encoding gene were observed for Brazilian G2P [4] strains, these two genes were the most divergent among the eleven RVA genes (Figs.…”

“…4 and 5). Differently from what was recently observed by Dennis et al (2014), phylogenetic analyses of G2P [4] Brazilian RVA strains based on NSP1-5, VP1-4, and VP6 showed different clustering patterns (Figs. 4 and 5) suggesting the occurrence of reassortment events among strains.…”

G2 rotavirus within an emergent VP7 evolutionary lineage circulating in children with acute diarrhea in Guangxi Province of China, 2014

“…Therefore, to determine which mutated nucleotide at the reverse primer End9 binding sites is responsible for amplification failure with Beg9/End9, a series of reverse primers were designed to replace the single original nucleotide or degenerate base at each of the four point mutation positions in End9. Surprisingly, whatever the position the mutated nucleotide was in, it barely influenced The recently established unified nomenclature system for the VP7 genes of human G2 RVAs includes four major lineages (I-IV) and at least three sublineages (IVa-1 to IVa-3 for lineages IV), among which lineage IV included most of the globally prevalent G2 strains [15][16][17][18]. In addition, the VP7 genes of porcine G2 RVAs, which were thought to share a common evolutionary origin with human RVAs [19], were classified more recently as belonging to lineage V [17].…”

Absence of Genetic Differences among G10P[11] Rotaviruses Associated with Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Neonatal Infections in Vellore, India

“…The genotype of segments encoding the viral proteins VP7-VP4-VP6-VP1-VP2-VP3-NSP1-NSP2-NSP3-NSP4-NSP5/NSP6 is represented by the acronym Gx-Px-Ix-Rx-CxMx-Ax-Nx-Tx-Ex-Hx, where x is an integer. Whole-genome sequencing has shown that human RVs with the genotype constellation of G1/G3/G4/G9/G12-P [8]-I1-R1-C1-M1-A1-N1-T1-E1-H1 or G2-P[4]-I2-R2-C2-M2-A2-N2-T2-E2-H2 are globally dominant (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). Several neonatal RV strains have been identified with overall genotype constellations that are similar to those of the globally dominant strains, with the exception of their P genotypes.…”