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Analysis of sequential hepatitis A virus strains reveals coexistence of distinct viral subpopulations

¹ Department of Biochemistry and McGill Cancer Center, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1Y6
² Centro de Biología Molecular ‘Severo Ochoa’ (CSIC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
³ Laboratorio de Virología Molecular, Centro de Investigaciones Nucleares, Facultad de Ciencias, Iguá 4225, 11400 Montevideo, Uruguay

Correspondence
Juan Cristina
cristina{at}cin.edu.uy

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is a hepatotropic member of the family Picornaviridae. Despite a remarkable antigenic stability, recent results have shown that HAV exists in vivo and in cell culture as distributions of genetically related, non-identical variants, referred to as quasispecies. To gain insight into HAV evolution over time in a specific geographical region, genotype I consensus sequences from strains isolated in France in consecutive years were studied. Phylogenetic neighbour-joining method and a non-hierarchical partition analysis, designed to analyse viral quasispecies, indicate that at least five distinct subpopulations of HAV were identified in the course of the disease episode. Strikingly, over time, different subpopulations cycled in dominance. The coexistence of distinct subpopulations whose frequency varies with time is consistent with quasispecies dynamics, and suggests that variation in the dominant HAV population may provide HAV adaptability without being reflected in significant antigenic variation.

A figure of the phylogenetic analysis of the complete VP1 region using the p-distance model and the UPGMA method, and a table showing French HAV strains examined in this study are available as supplementary material in JGV Online.

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				G. Moratorio, M. Costa-Mattioli, R. Piovani, H. Romero, H. Musto, and J. Cristina Bayesian coalescent inference of hepatitis A virus populations: evolutionary rates and patterns J. Gen. Virol., November 1, 2007; 88(11): 3039 - 3042. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]