Genetic Analysis of Human Norovirus Strains in Japan in 2016-2017

Overview

Journal Front Microbiol

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2018 Feb 7

PMID 29403456

Citations 16

Authors

Koo Nagasawa

Yuki Matsushima

Takumi Motoya

Fuminori Mizukoshi

Yo Ueki

Naomi Sakon

Koichi Murakami

Tomomi Shimizu

Nobuhiko Okabe

Noriko Nagata

Komei Shirabe

Hiroto Shinomiya

Wataru Suzuki

Makoto Kuroda

Tsuyoshi Sekizuka

Yoshiyuki Suzuki

Akihide Ryo

Kiyotaka Fujita

Kazunori Oishi

Kazuhiko Katayama

Hirokazu Kimura

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In the 2016/2017 winter season in Japan, HuNoV GII.P16-GII.2 strains (2016 strains) emerged and caused large outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis. To better understand the outbreaks, we examined the molecular evolution of the gene and region in 2016 strains from patients by studying their time-scale evolutionary phylogeny, positive/negative selection, conformational epitopes, and phylodynamics. The time-scale phylogeny suggested that the common ancestors of the 2016 strains gene and region diverged in 2006 and 1999, respectively, and that the 2016 strain was the progeny of a pre-2016 GII.2. The evolutionary rates of the gene and region were around 10 substitutions/site/year. Amino acid substitutions (position 341) in an epitope in the P2 domain of 2016 strains were not found in pre-2016 GII.2 strains. Bayesian skyline plot analyses showed that the effective population size of the gene in GII.2 strains was almost constant for those 50 years, although the number of patients with NoV GII.2 increased in 2016. The 2016 strain may be involved in future outbreaks in Japan and elsewhere.

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