title: Astrovirus associated acute gastroenteritis in western India: predominance of dual serotype strains.
abstract: A five-year (2004-2008) study was conducted on patients with acute gastroenteritis from different cities of Maharashtra, western India to detect and characterize astrovirus infections. A total of 1340 fecal specimens were collected from sporadic cases that included 1240 children (<or=8 years) and 100 adults (18-70 years) from Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur cities. All specimens were subjected to astrovirus specific RT-PCR followed by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. The overall positivity to astrovirus was found to be 3.1% with highest number of infections in winter months. A high prevalence of astrovirus was observed in children <or=1 year of age. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial ORF1a (serine protease) and ORF2 (capsid gene) regions showed the circulation of three probable recombinant types with different ORF1a/ORF2 specificities (HAstV-8/HAstV-1, HAstV-7/HAstV-2, HAstV-4/HAstV-5) along with HAstV-8 of a single specificity in the study population. HAstV-8/HAstV-1, specificity predominated (67.7%) in the region followed by HAstV-7/HAstV-2 (9.7%), HAstV-4/HAstV-5 (6.5%) and HAstV-8 (16%) types. This is the first report that highlights the genetic diversity of astrovirus strains circulating in Maharashtra state, western India.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Virology (ICMR), Pune, India.
authors.forename: Harsha
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.forename: Shobha D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Chitambar
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gopalkrishna
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D019350:Astroviridae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D005260:Female; D005759:Gastroenteritis / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D001257:Mamastrovirus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D008875:Middle Aged; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology / Q000379:methods*; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012621:Seasons; D012703:Serotyping