Norovirus (NoV) is responsible for outbreaks and sporadic cases of nonbacterial acute gastroenteritis in humans worldwide. The virus consists of small round particles containing a single-stranded RNA genome that is divided into three Open Reading Frames. NoV evolves via mechanisms of antigenic drift and recombination, which lead to the emergence of new strains that are capable of causing global epidemics. Recombination usually occurs in the ORF1/ORF2 overlapping region and generates strains with different genotypes in the polymerase and capsid region. The primary objective of this study was to analyze recombination in positive-NoV samples. Specimens were collected during 2011, 2012 and 2014, from children under two years of age presenting gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. The partial polymerase (B region), capsid (D region) genes and the ORF1-ORF2 overlap regions were sequenced in each sample. The recombinant analyses were performed in the Simplot software v.3.5.1 and RDP4 Beta v. 4.6 program. These analyses showed that GII.Pg/GII.1, GII.P7/GII.6, and GII.P22/GII.5 were recombinant strains. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the GII.P22/GII.5 and GII.Pg/GII.1 strains were described in South America and the GII.P7/GII.6 was detected in Northern of Brazil.

Ministério da Saúde. Secretaria de Vigilância em Saúde. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.