Prevalence and genetic diversity of human sapovirus associated with sporadic acute gastroenteritis in South China from 2013 to 2017.

Human sapovirus is an important viral agent for acute diarrhea worldwide, but timely prevalence data of human sapovirus in South China is still lacking. In this study, a four-year surveillance was conducted to characterize the prevalence and genetic characteristics of circulating sapovirus associated with sporadic diarrhea in South China. From November 2013 to October 2017, 569 fecal samples from patients with acute diarrhea were collected. Sapovirus was detected in 11 samples with the positive rate of 1.93%. Three human genogroups of GI, GII and GIV were identified, including 5 GI.1 strains, 3 GI.2 strains, 1 GI.3 strain, 1 GII.8 strain, and 1 GIV strain. Furthermore, multiple alignments of complete capsid protein VP1 genes of five local GI.1 strains and other available GI.1 strains in GenBank were performed. Average pairwise identities were calculated at 95.33% and 99.36% at nucleotide and amino acid levels, and only six variable amino acid sites were found during its thirty-six-years' evolution process. GI.1 strains could be further phylogenetically divided into four clusters with an approximate temporal evolution pattern, and local strains belonged to Cluster-d with other four strains from China and Japan. In summary, sapovirus was identified an etiological agent responsible for sporadic gastroenteritis in Guangzhou with a low prevalence rate as in other Chinese cities, but its high genetic diversity suggested the necessity of continuous sapovirus surveillance in the future. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.