Human parainfluenza virus 3 (HPIV-3) is a leading cause of respiratory disease in children worldwide. Previous sequence analyses of the entire virus genome, among different HPIV-3 strains, demonstrated that HN is the most variable gene. There is a dearth of data on HPIV-3 strains circulating in Saudi Arabia. In this report, HPIV-3 was screened in nasopharyngeal aspirates collected from hospitalized children with acute respiratory disease during two successive seasons (2007/08 and 2008/09) using nested RT-PCR. Out of 73 samples collected during 2007/08, seven (9.59%) were positive; while 3 out of 107 samples collected during 2008/09 (2.8%) were positive. Virus isolation in cell culture was successful using HEp2, but not Vero cells. The identity of the isolated viruses was confirmed using immunofluorescence and neutralization assays. To elucidate the genetic characteristics and phylogeny of Saudi HPIV-3 strains, the complete HN gene sequence of two selected Saudi strains was analyzed in comparison to 20 strains isolated by others from different countries worldwide. Both strains showed the highest degree of sequence homology with Indian strains, followed by Chinese and most Japanese strains. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed that these strains fell into a distinct Asian lineage. This study is the first in Saudi Arabia to recover HPIV-3 isolates of confirmed identity, and to generate sequence data that may help in understanding virus diversity and evolution.
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