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Updated: Sep 5, 2025
Detection and Genogrouping of Noroviruses from Children's Stools By Taqman One-step RT-PCR
Published on: July 22, 2012
Identification and genetic characterization of a minor norovirus genotype, GIX.1[GII.P15], from China
Yanli Chen1,2, Qiongwen Wu1,2, Guiman Li3
1Yunnan Key Laboratory of Vaccine Research and Development on Severe Infectious Diseases, Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, No. 935 alternating current Road, Wuhua District, Kunming, 650118, Yunna, China.
Background:
Human noroviruses, single-stranded RNA viruses in the family Caliciviridae, are a leading cause of nonbacterial acute gastroenteritis in people of all ages worldwide. Despite three decades of genomic sequencing and epidemiological norovirus studies, full-length genome analyses of the non-epidemic or minor norovirus genotypes are rare and genomic regions other than ORF2 and 3'-end of ORF1 have been largely understudied, which hampers a better understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms of emergence of new strains. In this study, we detected a rare norovirus genotype, GIX.1[GII.P15], in a vomit sample of a 60 year old woman with acute gastroenteritis using Raji cells and sequenced the complete genome.
Results:
Using electron microscopy, a morphology of spherical and lace-like appearance of norovirus virus particles with a diameter of approximately 30 nm were observed. Phylogenetic analysis of VP1 and the RdRp region indicated that the KMN1 strain could be genotyped as GIX.1[GII.P15]. In addition, the VP1 region of KMN1 strain had 94.15% ± 3.54% percent nucleotide identity (PNI) compared to 26 genomic sequences available in GenBank, indicating a higher degree similarity between KMN1 and other GIX.1[GII.P15] strains. Further analysis of the full genome sequence of KMN1 strain showed that a total of 96 nucleotide substitutions (63 in ORF1, 25 in ORF2, and 8 in ORF3) were found across the genome compared with the consensus sequence of GIX.1[GII.P15] genome, and 6 substitutions caused amino acid changes (4 in ORF1, 1 in ORF2, and 1 in ORF3). However, only one nucleotide substitution results in the amino acid change (P302S) in the VP1 protein and the site was located near one of the predicted conformational B epitopes on the dimer structure.
Conclusions:
The genomic information of the new GIX.1[GII.P15] strain KMN1, which was identified in Kunming, China could provide helpful insights for the study of the genetic evolution of the virus.
