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The sequence of the VP7 gene of human rotavirus strain HCR3 was determined and its predicted amino acid sequence was compared with that of other rotavirus strains. The VP7 gene is 1062 nucleotides long and contains a single open reading frame of 981 nucleotides capable of encoding a protein of 326 amino acids. The VP7 amino acid sequence similarity of strain HCR3 to those of various human and animal G3 serotypes ranged from 88.7 to 99.4%, and from 60.4 to 88.3% to strains representing each of the other 13 G serotypes. Alignment of four variable regions VR4, VR5(A), VR7(B) and VR8(C) of HCR3 with those of G3 strains of different host species showed that HCR3 possesses a sequence almost identical to that of canine rotaviruses and feline rotavirus strain CAT97 in all four regions. A considerable divergence in regions VR4, VR7(B) and VR8(C) was found with strains of human, mouse, monkey, horse and rabbit rotaviruses. This observation together with results of our previous study on VP4 indicated that human rotavirus HCR3 is genetically more closely related to animal rotaviruses than to other human rotaviruses.
Li et al. (Sat,) studied this question.