Abstract
BackgroundNoroviruses are the leading cause of infectious non-bacterial gastroenteritis in Ireland (population 4 million). Due to the number of outbreaks, its massive impact on the Irish health service and its seasonality, Norovirus has gained public notoriety as The Winter Vomiting Bug. The increase in cases in Ireland in the 2002–2003 season coincided with the emergence of two new Genogroup II genotype 4 variant clusters of Norovirus worldwide.ResultsLittle research has been done on the epidemiology or molecular biology of Norovirus strains in Ireland. In an effort to combat this discrepancy, we cloned a full length human norovirus genome as a cDNA clone (J3) which can produce full length transcripts in vitro. A polymerase mutant cDNA clone (X1), in addition to a sub genomic cDNA clone (1A) were produced for use in future work.Carlow virus (Hu/NoV/GII/Carlow/2002/Ire) genome is 7559 nts in length, excluding the 3-end poly A tail and represents the first Norovirus strain from Ireland to be sequenced.ConclusionCarlow virus is a member of the Farmington Hills variant cluster of Genogroup II genotype 4 noroviruses.
Highlights
Noroviruses are the leading cause of infectious non-bacterial gastroenteritis in Ireland
Carlow virus is a member of the Farmington Hills variant cluster of Genogroup II genotype 4 noroviruses
Screening of the 70 samples utilising COG2F [19] and the reverse primer G2NVR designed to the 3' end of ORF1 and start of ORF2 (Table 1) showed that 32 samples were positive for Norovirus. 28 were found to be members of Genogroup II (GII), 2 of Genogroup I (GI) and 2 not yet determined
Summary
Noroviruses are the leading cause of infectious non-bacterial gastroenteritis in Ireland (population 4 million). Noroviruses are the leading cause of infectious non-bacterial gastroenteritis in Ireland. Norovirus is a member of the Caliciviridae family of viruses. It is a single stranded, positive sense, RNA virus of 7.4–7.7 kb in length, with a 3' poly A tail. ORF2 and 3 encode the structural proteins, capsid VP1 and minor structural protein VP2. The capsid is divided into two domains the Nterminal shell (S) and the C-terminal protusion (P), linked by an eight amino acid hinge. The P2 domain located on the surface of the capsid binds the histo-blood group antigens [3,4]
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