RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 First report of the East-Central South African Genotype of Chikungunya Virus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 082131
DO 10.1101/082131
A1 Thiara Manuele Alves de Souza
A1 Elzinandes Leal de Azeredo
A1 Jéssica Badolato Corrêa da Silva
A1 Paulo Vieira Damasco
A1 Carla Cunha Santos
A1 Fabienne Petitinga de Paiva
A1 Priscila Conrado Guerra Nunes
A1 Luciana Santos Barbosa
A1 Márcio da Costa Cipitelli
A1 Thaís Chouin-Carneiro
A1 Nieli Rodrigues da Costa Faria
A1 Rita Maria Ribeiro Nogueira
A1 Fernanda de Bruycker-Nogueira
A1 Flavia Barreto dos Santos
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/20/082131.abstract
AB Background Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arbovirus that causes an acute febrile illness characterized by severe and debilitating arthralgia. In Brazil, the Asian and East-Central South African (ECSA) genotypes are circulating in the north and northeast of the country, respectively. In 2015, the first autochthonous cases in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were reported but until now the circulating strains have not been characterized. Therefore, we aimed here to perform the molecular characterization and phylogenetic analysis of CHIKV strains circulating in the 2016 outbreak occurred in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro.Methods The cases analyzed in this study were collected at a private Hospital, from April 2016 to May 2016, during the chikungunya outbreak in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All cases were submitted to the Real Time RT-PCR for CHIKV genome detection and to anti-CHIKV IgM ELISA. Chikungunya infection was laboratorially confirmed by at least one diagnostic method and, randomly selected positive cases (n=10), were partially sequenced (CHIKV E1 gene) and analyzed.Results The results showed that all the samples grouped in ECSA genotype branch and the molecular characterization of the fragment did not reveal the A226V mutation in the Rio de Janeiro strains analyzed, but a K211T amino acid substitution was observed for the first time in all samples and a V156A substitution in two of ten samples.Conclusions Phylogenetic analysis and molecular characterization reveals the circulation of the ECSA genotype of CHIKV in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and two amino acids substitutions (K211T and V156A) exclusive to the CHIKV strains obtained during the 2016 epidemic, were reported.