Nucleotide Sequence of VP4 and VP7 Genes of a Unique Human Rotavirus Strain Mc35 with Subgroup I and Serotype 10 Specificity

The VP7 and VP4 genome segments of human rotavirus strain Mc35 (Urasawa et al., J. Infect. Dis. , 166, 227-234, 1992) were investigated. Analysis of its VP7 nucleotide and amino acid sequences confirmed that it belongs to G (or VP7) serotype 10; however, the nucleotide sequence homologies between Mc35 and the four G10 bovine strains examined were lower than those among the four G 10 bovine strains. The VP4 nucleotide and amino acid sequences of Mc35 were distinct (66.1-68.8% nucleotide and 64.9-70.0% amino acid homologies) from those of previously reported human and animal rotavirus strains representing different P (or VP4) types except for the strain K8 VP4, which was designated as type 3 of human rotavirus VP4 by Gorziglia et al. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA., 87, 7155-7159, 1990). The VP4s of the K8 and Mc35 strains showed a relatively high degree of homology (77.6% nucleotide and 86.0% amino acid sequence homologies) and were presumed to represent subtypes of type 3 human rotavirus VP4 (type 3A (K8 VP4) and type 39 (Mc35 VP4)).