Molecular epidemiology of norovirus GⅡ.15 in Qingdao City / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To analyze the molecular epidemiology of norovirus (NoV) genotype GⅡ.15 in Qingdao City.@*Methods@#One thousand four hundred and twelve stool samples were collected from suspected NoV infected patients and detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Open reading frame (ORF)1-ORF2 and VP1 gene were amplified by reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and sequenced for genotyping, evolutionary analysis and homology modeling.@*Results@#Seven cases of GⅡ.15 type were detected including four sporadic cases and one outbreak.The VP1 gene was highly homologous and had little variation compared with early strain J23/US/1999. The differences of amino acids between strains in Qingdao City were mainly asparagine/asparticacid(N/D)300 and proline/serine(P/S)302.Homology modeling suggested that VP1 of GⅡ.15 strain was composed of S domain and P domain (P1 subdomain included 224-276 and 431-555, P2 subdomain included 277-430). S domain contained eight anti-parallel β-sandwiches and two α-helixes, and P1 subdomain contained one α-helix and seven β-strands, and the P2 subdomain folded into a compact barrel-like structure consisting of six β-strands.Argnine (R)-glycine (G)-valine (V)-motif (289-291) and three specific loci including glutarnine (Q)313, asparagine (N)349 and Q389 were located in the P2 subdomain, with NGR-motif (265-267) located at 22nd upstream of RGV-motif.Site I (SNR-alanine(A)- histidine(H)357-361), Site Ⅱ (D388) and Site Ⅲ (G454, G455) were the main characteristic sites of histo-blood group antigens (HBGA) binding interface, which may be similar to the binding pattern of GⅡ.4 type VA387 and HBGA.@*Conclusion@#Although GⅡ.15 type NoV evolves very slowly, it may still have the risk to become an epidemic strain, which needs to be monitored and further studied.