Two distinct clusterings of the VP8* gene of rotaviruses possessing the AU-1 gene 4 allele.

A phylogenetic tree constructed by the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic means (UPGMA) for the VP8* gene from 13 human and two feline rotavirus strains possessing the AU-1 gene 4 allele revealed that these strains could be classified into two clusters which did not correspond with the year of isolation or the host species from which they originated. Nine of 10 human strains and one feline strain isolated in Japan formed one cluster, whereas three human strains from Italy and one feline strain from Australia formed the other. Human strain K8 from Japan was distantly related to the Australo-European clustering.