[Contamination of typical human enteric viruses in economic shellfish along the Chinese coast].
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to understand the contamination of human enteric viruses in economic shellfish along the Chinese coast, an important issue of ensuring the seafood safety.


METHODS
We established the specific, sensitive and high-throughput gene chip technology, to investigate the contamination of economic shellfish by enteric viruses across a large geographical region of China.


RESULTS
The percentage of positive samples for each virus was as follows: Hepatitis A Virus 4.3%, norovirus 14.8%, rotavirus 6.2%, astrovirus 5.6%, and adenovirus 9.9%. In these five viruses, norovirus was contaminated in the first place. The results detected by gene chip were highly consistent with that of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The economic shellfishes in shellfish-growing areas along the coastal cities were all contaminated with enteric viruses at different levels. However, there was no significant correlation between any two cities. In the selected 6 economic shellfishes, oyster had the highest positive rate of enteric viruses, followed by blood clam.


CONCLUSIONS
The contamination of shellfish with human enteric viruses was common across the main coastal cities of China, indicating a potential public health threat from seafood.
Hongxia
H
Ming
Jingfeng
J
Fan
Lijun
L
Wu
Longtao
L
Yue
Xueqin
X
Gao
Yubo
Y
Liang
D002681:China; D004770:Enterovirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D059022:Food Safety; D006801:Humans; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012758:Shellfish / Q000382:microbiology*