Divergent gyroviruses in the feces of Tunisian children.

The Gyrovirus genus consists of the immunosuppressive Chicken Anemia Virus (CAV) prototype and since 2011 three other viral species found in sera/tissues of chickens, human feces, and on human skin. Here the genomes of two other gyrovirus species were characterized in diarrhea samples from Tunisian children whose main ORFs shared amino acid identity of 46-59% with those of the previously characterized gyroviruses and were provisionally named GyV5 and GyV6. All currently known gyroviruses grouped into two clades with distinct genomic features including replacement of the VP2 overlapping Apoptin gene with a distinct ORF of unknown function. Previous reports of gyrovirus DNA in human blood and on human skins warrant studies of possible human tropisms for these newly characterized gyroviruses.