Molecular characterization of rabies virus isolates in China during 2004.
Human rabies cases have been on the rise during the past few years in China and a total of 2651 cases were reported in 2004. To better understand the current rabies epidemics in China, we isolated rabies viruses from dogs and humans from five provinces and characterized these isolates genetically by sequencing the entire nucleoprotein (N) gene. Comparison of the N genes among these isolates revealed 86.6-99.9% homology and these viruses can be grouped into three lineages. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that all the Chinese isolates have a close relationship with viruses circulating in Asian canine population. When compared with rabies viruses isolated previously, the three lineages were similar to three of the four groups. Thus, our data suggest that rabies viruses currently circulating in China were similar, if not identical, to those reported in the previous epidemics.
Zhang
Yong-Zhen
YZ
Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China. yongzhengzhang@sohu.com
Xiong
Cheng-Long
CL
Zou
Yang
Y
Wang
Ding-Ming
DM
Jiang
Ren-Jie
RJ
Xiao
Qi-You
QY
Hao
Zong-Yu
ZY
Zhang
Ling-Zhu
LZ
Yu
Yong-Xin
YX
Fu
Zhen F
ZF
D000818:Animals; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D019590:Nucleocapsid Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D011820:Rabies virus / Q000235:genetics*; D017385:Sequence Homology
D019590:Nucleocapsid Proteins; D012367:RNA, Viral; C099601:nucleocapsid protein, Rabies virus