IDENTIFICATION OF VIRUSES WITH BISEGMENTED AND TRISEGMENTED DOUBLE-STRANDED-RNA GENOME IN FECES OF CHILDREN WITH GASTROENTERITIS

Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of nucleic acid extracted from faec al samples of diarrhoeic children revealed the presence of group A rot avirus in 50 (23.4 %) samples and group C rotavirus in 1 (0.5 %) sampl e out of 214 tested. One other sample showed the presence of three ban ds (with apparent length of 2.92, 2.37 and 1.32 kbp) which by enzymati c digestion analysis, were shown to consist of double-stranded RNA (ds RNA). The sample was shown by electron microscopy to contain virus par ticles with a diameter of 32-34 nm. On the basis of morphology and gen omic characteristics, this virus closely resembles a virus hitherto de scribed only in chickens by Leite et al. in 1990 and tentatively named ''picotrirnavirus''. From the same group of 214, one sample containin g a ''picobirnavirus'' was also identified. Thus, small icosahedral vi ruses with either a bi- or trisegmented dsRNA genome appear to infect humans. However, their pathogenic potential remains to be established.