title: Detection of novel astroviruses in urban brown rats and previously known astroviruses in humans.
abstract: Several novel astroviruses have been recently discovered in humans and in other animals. Here, we report results from our surveillance of astroviruses in human and rodent faecal samples in Hong Kong. Classical human astroviruses (n=9) and a human MLB1 astrovirus were detected in human faecal samples (n=622). Novel astroviruses were detected from 1.6 % of the faecal samples of urban brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) (n=441), indicating the prevalence of astrovirus infection in rats might be much lower than that recently observed in bats. These rat astroviruses were phylogenetically related to recently discovered human astroviruses MLB1 and MLB2, suggesting that the MLB viruses and these novel rat astroviruses may share a common ancestor.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Department of Microbiology and the Research Centre of Infection and Immunology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.
authors.forename: Daniel K W
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Alex W H
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Chin
authors.forename: Gavin J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Kwok-Hung
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: J S Malik
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Peiris
authors.forename: Leo L M
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Poon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019200:Astroviridae / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D019350:Astroviridae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology; D002947:Cities; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D051381:Rats; D012376:Rodent Diseases / Q000821:virology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral