Abstract
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory infections and is classified in two main groups, RSV-A and RSV-B, with multiple genotypes within each of them. For RSV-B, more than 30 genotypes have been described, without consensus on their definition. The lack of genotype assignation criteria has a direct impact on viral evolution understanding, development of viral detection methods as well as vaccines design. Here we analyzed the totality of complete RSV-B G gene ectodomain sequences published in GenBank until September 2018 (n = 2190) including 478 complete genome sequences using maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses, as well as intergenotypic and intragenotypic distance matrices, in order to generate a systematic genotype assignation. Individual RSV-B genes were also assessed using maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses and multiple sequence alignments were used to identify molecular markers associated to specific genotypes. Analyses of the complete G gene ectodomain region, sequences clustering patterns, and the presence of molecular markers of each individual gene indicate that the 37 previously described genotypes can be classified into fifteen distinct genotypes: BA, BA-C, BA-CC, CB1-THB, GB1-GB4, GB6, JAB1-NZB2, SAB1, SAB2, SAB4, URU2 and a novel early circulating genotype characterized in the present study and designated GB0.
Highlights
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of lower respiratory tract infections in infants, elderly adults, and immunosuppressed individuals[1]
From a total of 10,340 RSV sequences downloaded from NCBI, 3029 corresponded to the RSV-B complete G gene ectodomain; 831 sequences (27.4%) were discarded due to indels or degenerate nucleotides that could interfere in a correct genotype assignation (Supplementary Fig. 1)
A large number of RSV-B genotypes have been reported in the literature[9,10,11,12,13,14,15,23,25,26]
Summary
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of lower respiratory tract infections in infants, elderly adults, and immunosuppressed individuals[1]. Since the discovery of RSV, a wide diversity of viral strains has been identified leading to the classification in two major groups (RSV-A and RSV-B), as well as multiple g enotypes[2,3,4]. RSV infections occur worldwide and co-circulation of viral strains from both major groups is c ommon[5]. Some viral clusters which have been described as distinct genotypes have turned out to belong to previously identified genotypes. A previously unrecognized RSV-B cluster composed of strains that circulated between 1972 and 1983 shows unique characteristics enough to identify them as a distinct early genotype
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