New astrovirus in human feces from Burkina Faso.

ABSTRACT: A significant fraction of cases of diarrhea, a leading cause of childhood mortality worldwide, remain unexplained.To identify viruses in unexplained cases of diarrhea using an unbiased metagenomics approach.Viral nucleic acids were enriched from the feces from 48 cases of unexplained diarrhea from Burkina Faso, sequenced, and compared against all known viral genomes.The full genome of a highly divergent astrovirus was sequenced in a sample co-infected with parechovirus 1. RT-PCR identified a single astrovirus infection in these 48 patients indicating a low prevalence. Human astrovirus-BF34 was most closely related to mamastrovirus species 8 and 9 also found in human with which it shared 62%, 74%, and 57% amino acid identities over its protease, RNA dependent RNA polymerase and capsid proteins, respectively.Burkina Faso astrovirus is proposed as prototype for a novel species in the genus Mamastrovirus, here tentatively called Mamastrovirus 20, representing the fifth human astrovirus species.

SUBMITTER: Phan TG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4047031 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature