ABSTRACT
We wished to understand the genetic characteristics of enteric cytopathic human orphan (ECHO) virus type 6 (ECHO6) circulating in China. First, the partial VP1 coding region of six strains of the ECH-O6 virus isolated from cases of hand, foot and mouth diseases during routine surveillance in Hunan Province (China) from 2009 to 2014 were sequenced. Those sequences were analyzed along with 138 sequences of ECHO viruses covering five provinces of China and countries outside China retrieved from the GenBank database. A phylogenetic tree based on partial VPI was constructed, and it indicated that Chinese strains of the ECHO virus could form two distinct evolutionary branches: branch 1 and branch 2. All isolates of the ECHO virus from Hunan Province belonged to the 2c subranch, which revealed that they may share a common evolutionary origin. ECHO strains in branch 2 may be the predominant strains in China due to their wide geographic distribution and long period of circulation. We used nucleotide differences of >30%o as the basis of cluster division. ECHO, viruses could be divided into four clusters (A-D). Cluster D could be divided further into ten subclusters on the basis of nucleotide differences of 15%-30%. All ECHO6 isolates from Hunan Province belonged to the D7 subcluster. These data showed that the ECHO6 strains that circulated in Hunan Province in 2009-2014 were closely related to each other, and probably shared a common evolutionary origin. In addition, at least four distinct lineages of ECHO viruses have circulated in China.