Detection and Phylogenetic Analysis of Group A Rotaviruses in Faeces of Diarrhoeic Bovine, Caprine, Ovine, Porcine and Human Population from Central India

Background: Rotavirus infection is a leading cause of acute dehydrating diarrhoea in humans, primarily affecting infants and young children and causes neonatal diarrhoea in the majority of domestic animals. However, there is a dearth of literature in India on geographic or temporal comparisons of rotavirus transmission between humans and animals. Methods: Prior to analysis with one-step RT-PCR, RNA-PAGE confirmed 40 rotaviruses recovered from a total of 306 faecal and stool samples obtained from domestic animals, (245) suffering from watery diarrhoea and children (61) suffering from diarrhoea. The RT-PCR positive sample were subjected to sequence analysis followed by BLAST analysis to confirm the presence of VP7 gene specific to rotavirus. The sequences of rotavirus in study were aligned with Indian and global VP7 sequences and were further subjected for phylogenetic analysis. \Result: Only three samples of three different species (Human, cattle and buffalo) could show the positivity, while remaining 37 failed in RT-PCR. Besides, the similarity of the nucleotide sequence of one of the positive isolates recovered from cattle calf with one of the Indian human rotavirus sequences in phylogenetic analysis indicates the possibility of inter-species transmission of rota viral strains circulating in the area, indicating organism’s zoonotic significance.