Respiratory syncytial virus subtype ON1/NA1/BA9 predominates in hospitalized children with lower respiratory tract infections

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection is the leading cause of acute respiratory tract disease in children less than 5 years old. The aim of this study was to further elucidate the molecular properties and clinical characteristics of RSV infection. The study sample included 238 patients <5 years old who were hospitalized with clinical symptoms of upper or lower respiratory tract infection (URTI or LRTI) in the Pediatric Department at the First People's Hospital of Chenzhou, South China in 2014. We subjected nasopharyngeal aspirate (NPA) or nasal swab (NS) samples from the patients to indirect fluorescence assay screens. RSV G genes were amplified by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) and sequenced. Of the 238 patients screened, 64 (26.8%) were confirmed to have RSV infections. Of those 64 confirmed RSV infection cases, 39 (60.9%) had subtype BA9, 13 (20.3%) had the recently identified subtype ON1, 11 (17.2%) had subtype NA1, and 1 (1.6%) had subtype GB2. The predominant presentation was LRTI with coughing, sputum production, fever, and wheezing. RSV subtype NA1 and BA9 infections were found mostly in infants, whereas the age distribution of subtype ON1 infections was more uniform across the age bands. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that, compared with the prototype strain A2, all ON1 and most NA1 isolates had lost one potential N-glycosylation site at amino acid 251 and 249 due to T251K and N249Y substitution, respectively. These findings suggest that NA1, BA9, and ON1 are the dominant RSV subtypes causing respiratory tract infections in young children presenting to the hospital in South China. J. Med. Virol. 89:213-221, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Epidemiology and genetic variability of respiratory syncytial virus in Portugal, 2014–2018

“…Nonetheless, a true comparison of RSV prevalence in different geographic areas is difficult to perform taking into account the differences in the study design and, even in our study, prevalence was wide-ranging according to the season. Bronchiolitis and pneumonia were significantly associated with RSV-positive cases among children aged < 5 years, which was consistent with previous studies that found RSV as a major cause of acute LRTI in this age group [12,[38][39][40][41].…”

Epidemiological characteristics and phylogenic analysis of human respiratory syncytial virus in patients with respiratory infections during 2011–2016 in southern China

“…The annual distribution of RSV during 2011-2016 in Guangzhou revealed high epidemic years for 2011, 2014, and 2015, with year 2015 as an epidemic peak. There may be a biennial high incidence pattern of RSV in Guangzhou, and surveillance over a longer period will confirm the annual distribution characteristics (Esposito et al, 2015;Xiang et al, 2013).…”

“…Moreover, due to N318Y, T319A, or T320S/I/P mutation, eight Guangzhou NA1 and one Guangzhou NA3 strains lost the potential N-glycosylation site at residue 318 (Figure 8). Compared to the sequences of the representative BA1 strain (BA4128/99B; Fan et al, 2017;Trento et al, 2003), all BA9 strains had K218T, L223P, and S247P substitutions. I281T and H287Y existed in most of the Guangzhou BA9 strains except GZ2012/03 and GZ/2012/15, respectively.…”

Altered regulatory cytokine profiles in cases of pediatric respiratory syncytial virus infection

“…RSV infection was confirmed from nasopharyngeal swabs using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as described previously [25]. Viral load was measured using real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR, according to a standardized protocol [26].…”