Ea. Palombo et Rf. Bishop, SEQUENCES OF VP6 GENES OF HUMAN ROTAVIRUS STRAIN RV3 AND ITS VACCINE DERIVATIVE, Journal of General Virology, 75, 1994, pp. 2415-2419
The nucleotide sequence of the genomic segment encoding the major anti
gen, VP6, of human rotavirus strain RV3 was determined for the virus i
solated from faeces. This was compared with the sequence of the cognat
e gene of tissue culture-adapted candidate vaccine virus that was deri
ved from RV3 and had been passaged 30 times. A single silent nucleotid
e difference was detected between the two genes and the deduced amino
acid sequence for both showed the highest degree of identity (greater
than or equal to 97.5%) with the VP6 proteins of rotavirus strains bel
onging to the same subgroup. The amino acid residues that might affect
VP6 subgroup epitope type from RV3 and other viruses of the same or d
ifferent subgroups were compared. The commonality of particular amino
acids among strains of different subgroups suggests that the presence
of all subgroup-specific amino acids may be necessary for subgroup det
ermination.