Rare Rotavirus Strains in Children | CDC EID

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Volume 17, Number 5–May 2011
Letter
Rare Rotavirus Strains in Children with Severe Diarrhea, Malaysia
Ling-Sing Ch'ng, Way S. Lee, and Carl D. Kirkwood
Author affiliations: Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia (L.-S. Ch'ng, C.D. Kirkwood); University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (L.-S. Ch'ng, C.D. Kirkwood); and University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (W.S. Lee)
Suggested citation for this article

To the Editor: We report the identification of G3P[9] rotavirus in children with acute diarrhea in Malaysia. Globally, rotavirus infections are the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children admitted to hospital. It is estimated that 527,000 children <5 years of age die each year of rotavirus diarrhea (1). Strains with a G3P[9] genotype represent a rare group of viruses, initially reported in Japan in 1982. These viruses have been sporadically associated with diarrhea in infants in countries such as Thailand, Italy, United States, Japan, Malaysia, and China (2–7) and thus represent a rare but widely distributed group of viruses. Four genotype G3P[9] strains were identified from a total of 134 rotavirus-positive samples analyzed during surveillance studies conducted among children <5 years of age who were admitted to the University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, with acute diarrhea during 2008. To understand the possible origin of these G3P[9] viruses, we determined the sequence of the genes encoding the 2 outer capsid proteins, viral protein (VP) 7 and VP4, and analyzed their phylogenetic relationship to other rotaviruses. Rotavirus double-stranded RNA was extracted by using the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany), and the genes encoding the VP4 and VP7 proteins were amplified by reverse transcription–PCR (RT-PCR). The VP7 gene segment (nt 51–932) was amplified by using primers VP7-F and VP7-R (8), and the VP8 subunit of the VP4 gene (nt 150–795) was amplified by using the primers VP4-F and VP4-R (9). The PCR products were purified by using the QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit (QIAGEN) and sequenced by using the ABI Prism BigDye Terminator cycle sequencing kit version 3.1 (Applied Biosystems, Carlsbad, CA, USA) with primers homologous to both ends and internal regions of each gene. Sequencing was performed on an Applied Biosystems 3730xl DNA Analyzer at the Australian Genome Research Facility. Sequences were analyzed by using the Sequencher program version 4.1 (Gene Codes Corp., Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, USA), and aligned by using ClustalW (www.ebi.ac.uk/clustalw). Phylogenetic analysis was conducted by using MEGA version 4.1 and neighbor-joining method with 1,000 bootstrap replicates (10).The 4 G3P[9] rotavirus strains all exhibited identical nucleotide and amino acid sequences for the regions of VP7 and VP8 subunit of VP4 analyzed. full-text: Rare Rotavirus Strains in Children | CDC EID


Suggested Citation for this Article
Ch'ng L-S, Lee WS, Kirkwood CD. Rare rotavirus strains in children with severe diarrhea, Malaysia [letter]. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2011 May [date cited]. http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/17/5/948.htm

DOI: 10.3201/eid1705.101652


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Carl D. Kirkwood, Enteric Virus Group, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Flemington Rd, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia; email: carl.kirkwood@mcri.edu.au