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 G10 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 3B (Mc35 VP4)).