Detection and serotyping of human adenoviruses from patients with influenza-like illness in Mongolia

Abstract

Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) are responsible for approximately 5z-10z of acute respiratory infections. The serotypes of commonly detected respiratory HAdV in Asian countries are diverse. However, there are no well-documented reports of circulating HAdV serotypes in Mongolia. Between January 2010 and May 2011, 1,950 influenza-negative samples from patients with influenzalike illness, including eye swabs from patients with eye symptoms, were screened for HAdV, and 40 samples (2.1z) were positive for HAdVs. Among these 40 samples, 31 samples were positive for the hexon gene used in phylogenetic analysis, as determined by PCR. We identified 7 different serotypes. We constructed the phylogenetic trees of HAdV-B7 and HAdV-B3, the 2 most commonly detected serotypes in this study. All detected HAdV-B7 and -B3 Mongolian strains had identical sequences. HAdVD8, known to be associated with epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC), was detected from nasopharyngeal and eye swabs. There was no difference between the amino acid sequences of the hexon and fiber genes that may affect tissue tropism in Mongolian strains and those in EKC-causing strains.