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A Newly Recognised Gastroenteritis Virus of ManThe complete nucleotide sequence of Aichi virus (accession no. AB010145) has recently been determined by Drs. T. Yamashita and N. Takeda at the Aichi Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Aichi, Japan (Yamashita et al., 1998). The Aichi virus genome (isolate A846/88) is 8,251 nucleotides long, excluding the poly(A) tail and has 5' and 3' untranslated regions of 712 and 240 nucleotides, respectively. The single long open reading frame of 7,302 nucleotides protentially encodes a 2,433 residue polyprotein. This putative polyprotein was predicted to contain the typical picornavirus polypeptides, VP0, VP3, VP1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D. The capsid proteins appear to be preceeded by a leader polypeptide approximately 145 amino acids long. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Aichi virus could be placed in a new picornavirus genus. Aichi virus was first recognised in 1989 as the cause of oyster-associated non-bacterial gastroenteritis in man (Yamashita et al., 1991). Aichi virus is cytopathic in BS-C-1 cells. Most interestingly Aichi virus appears to morphologically resemble astroviruses when examined by electron microscopy. Antibody surveys in Japan showed that exposure increased with age reaching about 80% in persons 35 years old (Yamashita et al., 1993). More recently Aichi virus was isolated from Pakistani children with gastroenteritis and from Japanese travellers returning from tours of Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia) who were complaining of similar symptoms (Yamashita et al., 1995). References Yamashita, T., Kobayashi, S., Sakae, K., Nakata, S., Chiba, S., Ishihara, Y. and Isomura, S. (1991). Isolation of cytopathic small round viruses with BS-C-1 cells from patients with gastroenteritis. J. Infect. Dis. 164: 954-957. Yamashita, T., Sakae, K., Ishihara, Y., Isomura, S. and Utagawa, E. (1993). Prevalence of newly isolated, cytopathic small round virus (Aichi strain) in Japan. J. Clin. Microbiol. 31: 2938-2943. Yamashita, T., Sakae, K., Kobayashi, S., Ishihara, Y., Miyake, T., Mubina, A. and Isomura, S. (1995). Isolation of cytopathic small round virus (Aichi virus) from Pakistani children and Japanese travelers from Southeast Asia. Microbiol. Immunol. 39: 433-435. Yamashita, T., Sakae, K., Tsuzuki, H., Suzuki, Y., Ishikawa, N., Takeda, N., Miyamura, T. and Yamazaki, S. (1998). Complete nucleotide sequence and genetic organization of Aichi virus, a distinct member of the Picornaviridae associated with acute gastroenteritis in humans. J. Virol. 72: 8408-8412. |