Detection of Bovine Group A Rotavirus Using Rapid Antigen Detection Kits, RT-PCR and Next-Generation DNA Sequencing

MINAMI-FUKUDA, Fujiko; NAGAI, Makoto; TAKAI, Hikaru; MURAKAMI, Toshiaki; OZAWA, Tadashi; TSUCHIAKA, Shinobu; OKAZAKI, Sachiko; KATAYAMA, Yukie; OBA, Mami; NISHIURA, Naomi; SASSA, Yukiko; OMATSU, Tsutomu; FURUYA, Tetsuya; KOYAMA, Satoshi; SHIRAI, Junsuke; TSUNEMITSU, Hiroshi; FUJII, Yoshiki; KATAYAMA, Kazuhiko; MIZUTANI, Tetsuya

Group A rotavirus (RVA) is a causative agent of diarrhea in newborn animals [3, 14] . Bovine RVAs are distributed to young calves worldwide and are causes of an economic loss in the cattle industry [9, 13] . Since there are many infectious causes for neonatal calf diarrhea, laboratory assays are required of diagnosis of RVA infection [3] . RVA is a nonenveloped, triple-layered icosahedral virus possessing an 11-segmented double-stranded RNA genome that encodes six structural viral proteins (VP1, VP2, VP3, VP4, VP6 and VP7) and six nonstructural proteins (NSP1, NSP2, NSP3, NSP4, NSP5 and NSP6) [3] . VP4 and VP7 are the outer capsid proteins that independently elicit neutralizing antibodies, which mediate protective immunity [3] . Serotype is defined by a classification based on the neutralization of viral infectivity; however, the serotype of a rotavirus isolate can be predicted from the sequence of these regions [5] . Hence, genotyping is important for the clinician and diagnostician to obtain such information to interpret the results of vaccine studies and epidemiologic surveillance [6, 7] .