Molecular characterization of a human group A rotavirus isolated from an adult with severe dehydrating diarrhea and its relationship to strains concurrently circulating among children.
BACKGROUND
While group A rotavirus is widely accepted as an important etiology of acute gastroenteritis in children, this agent rarely causes severe diarrhea in adults and, thus, is not considered by physicians to be an etiological agent for such diseases.


OBJECTIVE
None of the reports describing such rare cases in adults has examined the causative strains genetically in detail.


METHODS
We determined the G type, the gene 4 genotype, the electropherotype, and the genomic RNA constellation (genogroup) of a group A rotavirus strain isolated from an adult with severe diarrhea. This patient, the first documented case of rotavirus diarrhea in adult in Japan, suffered from severe dehydrating diarrhea with 'rice-water' appearance, vomiting and little abdominal pain, presenting a clinical picture typical of cholera.


RESULTS
Rotavirus antigen and genomic RNA were detected in the stool but other enteric pathogens including Vibrio cholerae responsible for the disease were not isolated. Molecular characterization revealed that the patient was infected with a strain of the DS-1 genogroup with G2 and gene 4 genotype 4 which was circulating among children during the same period.


CONCLUSIONS
The result that the same group A rotavirus strain was isolated from children and an adult underlines the necessity of examining rotavirus in adults with acute diarrhea.
Kaga
E
E
Department of Microbiology, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita 010, Japan.
Tobita
M
M
Saito
T
T
Iizuka
M
M
Urayama
O
O
Nakagomi
T
T
Uesugi
S
S
Nakagomi
O
O