Potential Bat-like Rotavirus in Hospitalized Children with Diarrhea from the Dominican Republic

Interspecies transmission is an important aspect of rotavirus evolution and enhanced by the close contact between humans animals. The role bats as a reservoir or intermediary host for viruses associated with human gastroenteritis poorly understood, but there are reports rotaviruses detected in that contain genes from bat rotavirus. In this study, total 15 positive samples children hospitalized 2007 Dominican Republic were investigated sequencing capsid VP4, VP7 VP6 to identify genetic variants. most common genotypes G1-P[8]-I1, G3-P[6]-I2 G12-P[8]-I1. Interestingly, 3 sequenced strains had encoding highly similar (≥97%) those G3 genotype Bulgaria 2008. These sequences more distantly related (≤92%) other found bat, human, rabbit, pigs, rat monkeys. Only 1 VP4 sequence was available bat-like yielding P[6]. This identified P [6] than porcine derived P[6] sequences. Furthermore, 4 10 sequences, including strains, showed high nucleotide identity (>97%) I2 Kenya 2015. A novel observation finding ≥1 year age infected study extends previous knowledge on interspecies warrants future studies Dominican.