Molecular epidemiology of human respiratory syncytial virus among children in Japan during three seasons and hospitalization risk of genotype ON1

Akinobu Hibino; Reiko Saito; Kiyosu Taniguchi; Hassan Zaraket; Yugo Shobugawa; Tamano Matsui; Hiroshi Suzuki; Japanese HRSV Collaborative Study Group

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0192085

Molecular epidemiology of human respiratory syncytial virus among children in Japan during three seasons and hospitalization risk of genotype ON1

PLoS One. 2018 Jan 29;13(1):e0192085. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192085. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Akinobu Hibino¹, Reiko Saito¹, Kiyosu Taniguchi², Hassan Zaraket^{1

3

4}, Yugo Shobugawa¹, Tamano Matsui⁵, Hiroshi Suzuki⁶; Japanese HRSV Collaborative Study Group

Affiliations

¹ Division of International Health (Public Health), Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan.
² Pediatrics, National Mie Hospital, Mie, Japan.
³ Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
⁴ Center for Infectious Disease Research, Faculty of Medicine American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
⁵ Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan.
⁶ School of Nursing, Niigata Seiryo University, Niigata, Japan.

Abstract

We investigated the genetic diversity, the circulation patterns, and risk for hospital admission of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) strains in Japan between 2012 through 2015. During the study period, 744 HRSV-positive cases were identified by rapid diagnostic test. Of these, 572 samples were positive by real-time PCR; 400 (69.9%) were HRSV-A, and 172 (30.1%) were HRSV-B. HRSV-A and -B alternated as the dominant strain in the subsequent seasons. Phylogenetic tree analysis of the second hyper-variable region of the G protein classified the HRSV-A specimens into NA1 (n = 242) and ON1 (n = 114) genotypes and the HRSV-B specimens into BA9 (n = 60), and BA10 (n = 27). The ON1 genotype, containing a 72-nucleotide duplication in the G protein's second hyper-variable region, was first detected in the 2012-2013 season but it predominated and replaced the older NA1 HRSV-A in the 2014-2015 season, which also coincided with a record number of HRSV cases reported to the National Infectious Disease Surveillance in Japan. The risk of hospitalization was 6.9 times higher for the ON1 genotype compared to NA1. In conclusion, our data showed that the emergence and predominance of the relatively new ON1 genotype in Japan was associated with a record high number of cases and increased risk for hospitalization.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Genotype
Hospitalization*
Humans
Japan
Molecular Epidemiology*
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Human / genetics*
Risk Factors

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Study Group, Enforcement of Infectious Disease Surveillance and Risk Assessment for Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases (Principal Investigators, Dr. Tamano Matsui and formerly Dr. Kiyoshu Taniguchi), supported by a Grant in-Aid by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and Sciences, Japan. It was also supported by Niigata Prefectural Medical Association; JSPS Core-to-core Program, B.Asia-Africa Science Platforms sourced from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT); Kakenhi (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) from MEXT; the Japan Initiative for Global Research Network on Infectious Diseases (J-GRID) from MEXT and Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) in Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.