Koo Eung Seo, Kim Man Su, Choi Yong Seon, Park Kwon-Sam, Jeong Yong Seok
Department of Biology, College of Sciences, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, Kunsan National University, Gunsan, Republic of Korea.
PLoS One. 2017 Feb 15;12(2):e0172237. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172237. eCollection 2017.
Human norovirus (HNoV), a positive-sense RNA virus, is the main causative agent of acute viral gastroenteritis. Multiple pandemic variants of the genogroup II genotype 4 (GII.4) of NoV have attracted great attention from researchers worldwide. However, novel variants of GII.17 have been overtaking those pandemic variants in some areas of East Asia. To investigate the environmental occurrence of GII in South Korea, we collected water samples from coastal streams and a neighboring waste water treatment plant in North Jeolla province (in March, July, and December of 2015). Based on capsid gene region C analysis, four different genotypes (GII.4, GII.13, GII.17, and GII.21) were detected, with much higher prevalence of GII.17 than of GII.4. Additional sequence analyses of the ORF1-ORF2 junction and ORF2 from the water samples revealed that the GII.17 sequences in this study were closely related to the novel strains of GII.P17-GII.17, the main causative variants of the 2014-2015 HNoV outbreak in China and Japan. In addition, the GII.P21-GII.21 variants were identified in this study and they had new amino acid sequence variations in the blockade epitopes of the P2 domain. From these results, we present two important findings: 1) the novel GII.P17-GII.17 variants appeared to be predominant in the study area, and 2) new GII.21 variants have emerged in South Korea.
人诺如病毒(HNoV)是一种正链RNA病毒,是急性病毒性肠胃炎的主要病原体。诺如病毒基因组II基因型4(GII.4)的多个大流行变体引起了全球研究人员的极大关注。然而,GII.17的新型变体在东亚的一些地区已超过那些大流行变体。为了调查韩国GII的环境出现情况,我们于2015年3月、7月和12月从全罗北道的沿海溪流和附近的污水处理厂采集了水样。基于衣壳基因区域C分析,检测到四种不同的基因型(GII.4、GII.13、GII.17和GII.21),其中GII.17的流行率远高于GII.4。对水样的ORF1-ORF2连接区和ORF2进行的额外序列分析表明,本研究中的GII.17序列与GII.P17-GII.17的新型菌株密切相关,GII.P17-GII.17是2014-2015年中国和日本HNoV疫情的主要致病变体。此外,本研究中鉴定出了GII.P21-GII.21变体,它们在P2结构域的阻断表位中有新的氨基酸序列变异。基于这些结果,我们得出两个重要发现:1)新型GII.P17-GII.17变体在研究区域似乎占主导地位,2)韩国出现了新的GII.21变体。