Sewage surveillance reveals the presence of canine GVII norovirus and canine astrovirus in Uruguay

Abstract

Canine norovirus (NoV) and astrovirus (AstV) were studied in 20 domestic sewage samples collected in two cities in Uruguay. Four samples were characterized as canine AstV after phylogenetic analysis clustering with strains detected in Italy and Brazil in 2008 and 2012, respectively. One sample was characterized as canine NoV and clustered with a strain detected in Hong Kong and recently classified as GVII. This study shows the occurrence of a canine NoV GVII strain for the first time in the American continent and also warns about possible zoonotic infection, since canine strains were detected in domestic sewage.

Updated classification of norovirus genogroups and genotypes

“…Over the last decade, several new norovirus sequences have been detected from new hosts. These included canine norovirus sequences that were identified in faecal swab specimens of dogs in Hong Kong, China in 2007 [27,49] as well as in sewage samples from Uruguay in 2012 [47]. Our analyses confirmed the classification of these viruses into a new genogroup, GVII.…”

“…Inclusion of norovirus diagnostic testing by real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR into clinical and public health routine in recent years [27,[37][38][39] has confirmed the importance of GI and GII noroviruses globally [13,31,33,35,37,[40][41][42][43][44]. The increasing use of pathogen genome sequencing to unravel modes of transmission, sources of outbreaks, or to study the burden of infections has led to identification of several new candidate norovirus genogroups and genotypes since the last norovirus classification update in 2013 [9,12,33,40,41,43,[45][46][47][48][49]. In this paper, we update the classification scheme for noroviruses by proposing new genogroups and genotypes based on the complete capsid amino acid sequences using the previously agreed criteria [19].…”

Detection and genetic characterization of canine astroviruses in pet dogs in Guangxi, China

“…Some of the factors which may have contributed to the differences were the various ages of the dogs investigated, areas, feeding environment, dog population selected and maintenance condition of fecal samples and methods for detection. The prevalence of CAstVs without any symptoms suggest that the persistent replication of CAstVs in the gastrointestinal system and due to the lack of envelop protein, it enables them to have exceptional durability to adapt the harsh gastrointestinal tract and the environment as shown by Lizasoain et al [ 19 ]. The age of dogs investigated in this study has a wide range from 13 days to 15 years old, which was divided into four phases; younger pups (≤6 months), young pups (6 months − 2 years old), adult dogs (2–7 years old) and old dogs (≥7 years old).…”

Establishment of a duplex SYBR green I-based real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for the rapid detection of canine circovirus and canine astrovirus

“…The symptoms of infections caused by these viruses are extremely similar, making differential diagnosis difficult. Therefore, identification of novel diagnostic methods for the differentiation of these viruses has been a general focus of recent research [ [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] ].…”