Detection of diverse novel astroviruses from small mammals in China.

Ben Hu, Aleksei A. Chmura, Jialu Li，Guangjian Zhu, James S. Desmond, Yunzhi Zhang, Wei Zhang, Jonathan H. Epstein, Peter Daszak and Zhengli Shi 

J Gen Virol. 2014 Jul 17. 

Abstract

    Astroviruses infect human and many animal species and cause gastroenteritis. To extensively understand the distribution and genetic diversity of astrovirus in small mammals, we tested 968 anal swabs from 39 animal species, most of which were bats and rodents. We detected diverse astroviruses in 10 bat species, including known bat astroviruses and a large number of novel viruses. Meanwhile, novel groups of astroviruses were identified in three wild rodent species and a remarkably high genetic diversity of astrovirus was revealed in Eothenomys cachinus. We detected astroviruses in captive bred porcupines and nearly full-length genome sequence was determined for one strain. Phylogenetic analysis of complete ORF2 sequence suggested that it may share a common ancestor with porcine astrovirus type 2. Moreover, to our knowledge, this study reports the first discovery of astrovirus in shrews and pikas. Our results provide new insights for understanding these small mammals as natural reservoirs of astroviruses.

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/17/vir.0.067686-0.short?rss=1