PARTIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE GENOME OF 9 ANIMAL CALICIVIRUSES

Caliciviruses (CVs) include at least 42 distinct serotypes. Seventeen CV serotypes have been isolated from marine sources and are called San Miguel sea lion caliciviruses (SMSVs). CVs also have been isolated fr om reptiles, primates, and other terrestrial animals. Nucleotide seque nces from portions of genome of prototype strains for six SMSV serotyp es, the reptile CV, Cro-1, the cetacean CV, Tur-1, and the primate CV, Pan-1, are presented. cDNA products of the polymerase (all strains ch aracterized) and capsid (SMSV-17) regions were produced by reverse tra nscription-polymerase chain reaction using Pan-1 primers. Comparisons of nucleotide and amino acid identity among these and published CV seq uences indicated that the nine characterized CVs fall into a phylogene tic group that includes SMSV-1 and SMSV-4 and that is more closely rel ated to other characterized animal CVs than to most human CVs. The phy logenetic analysis also indicated that distinct genera exist among the Caliciviridae. SMSV-17 and SMSV-4 are predicted to be closer to each other than other caliciviruses of known serotype; 574 (82%) of the 704 amino acids in the SMSV-17 and SMSV-4 capsid genes were identical.