ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the genetic evolution of VP1 gene of pathogenic coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16) strain isolated from clinical hand,foot,and mouth disease (HFMD) patients.Methods A total of 160 HFMD cases with CV-A16-positive results were collected from hospitals in Kunming during January 2015 to June 2017.Fecal samples were collected.Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect the CV-A16 virus nucleic acid.The VP1 genes of CV-A16-positive samples were amplified by reverse transcription-PCR.The amplified positive products were sequenced and aligned.The homologies were identified and their subgenotypes were determined.The phylogenetic tree was constructed and homology modeling was conducted.Results All the 160 CV-A16 isolates were B2 subtypes.The genetic distance between detected strains of CV-A16 and the strains in Fujian,Beijing,Nanjing was 0.76.The genetic distance to the strains in Malaysia was 0.78,and to the strains in Australia was 1.86.Homologous modeling revealed that the amino acid sequence of the VP1 gene of the strain had a G227R mutation.Conclusions There is no major genetic variation in the CV-A16 strains during 3 years.CV-A16 isolates are close to those of epidemic strains in Beijing,Fujian and Malaysia,but are far fram the strains from Australia.