Picornavirus Salivirus/Klassevirus in Children with Diarrhea, China

EID Journal Home > Volume 16, Number 8–August 2010

Volume 16, Number 8–August 2010
Dispatch
Picornavirus Salivirus/Klassevirus in Children with Diarrhea, China
Tongling Shan,1 Chunmei Wang,1 Li Cui, Ying Yu, Eric Delwart, Wei Zhao, Caixia Zhu, Daoliang Lan, Xiuqiang Dai, and Xiuguo Hua
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China (T. Shan, C. Wang, L. Cui, Y. Yu, W. Zhao, C. Zhu, D. Lan, X. Dai, X. Hua); Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China (C. Wang); Blood Systems Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA (E. Delwart); and University of California, San Francisco (E. Delwart)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract
To learn more about salivirus/klassevirus, we tested feces of children with diarrhea in China during 2008–2009. We isolated the virus from 9/216 diarrhea samples and 0/96 control samples. The nearly full polyprotein of 1 isolate, SH1, showed 95% identity with a salivirus from Nigeria, indicating widespread distribution and association with diarrhea.

Diarrhea causes ≈2 million deaths each year (1), primarily among young children in developing countries (1,2). The causative agents for ≈40% of cases remain unknown (2–4).

Studies have documented an association between Aichi viruses and gastroenteritis (5,6). Recent studies have documented human infections with the salivirus/klassevirus-related Aichi virus (7–9) that were associated with diarrhea (9). The previously unknown picornavirus klassevirus has recently been recently detected in fecal samples from persons with diarrhea in the United States and Australia and in sewage in Spain (7,8). Closely related saliviruses have been identified in fecal samples from persons in Nigeria, Tunisia, and Nepal and have been statistically associated with diarrhea in Nepal (9).

Klassevirus/salivirus is genomically organized similar to other picornaviruses and most closely related to Aichi virus in the genus Kobuvirus (5–7). The family Picornaviridae is highly diverse and contains small, nonenveloped viruses with a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that encodes a single polyprotein; it consists of 12 genera and 2 possibly new genera (7), a subset of which can infect and cause disease in humans.

To our knowledge, there have been no reports of infection with this virus in the People’s Republic of China. Therefore, to extend these initial findings, we tested for this newly characterized virus in fecal samples from children with diarrhea in China and sequenced the nearly full genome of 1 isolate, SH1.

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Suggested Citation for this Article
Wang CM, Shan TL, Cui L, Yu Y, Delwart E, Zhao W, et al. Picornavirus Salivirus/Klassevirus in feces of children with diarrhea, China. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2010 Aug [date cited].
http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/16/8/1303.htm

DOI: 10.3201/eid1608.100087

1These authors contributed equally to this article.