Multispecies reassortant bovine rotavirus strain carries a novel simian G3-like VP7 genotype

Rotavirus-A (RVAs), are the major cause of severe gastroenteritis in the young of mammals and birds. RVA strains possessing G6, G8, and G10 genotypes in combination with P[1] or P[11] have been commonly detected in cattle. During a routine surveillance for enteric viruses in a bovine population on North-Western temperate Himalayan region of India, an uncommon bovine RVA strain, designated as RVA/Cow-wt/IND/M1/09/2009 was detected in a diarrhoeic crossbred calf. The examination of nearly complete genome sequence of this RVA strain revealed an unusual G-P combination (G3P[11]) on a typical bovine RVA genotype backbone (I2-R2-C2-M2-A11-N2-T6-E2-H3). The VP7 gene of M1/09 isolate displayed a maximum nucleotide sequence identity of 73.8% with simian strain (RVA/Simian-tc/USA/RRV/1975/G3P[3]). The VP4 and NSP5 genes clustered with an Indian pig strain, RVA/Pig-wt/IND/AM-P66/2012/G10P[11] (99.6%), and a caprine strain, RVA/Goat-tc/BGD/GO34/1999/G6P[1] (98.9%) from Bangladesh, respectively, whilst the, VP6, NSP1, NSP3 and NSP4 genes were identical or nearly identical to Indian bovine strains (RVA/Cow-wt/IND/B-72/2008/G10P[X], RVA/Cow-wt/IND/B85/2010/GXP[X], and RVA/Cow-wt/IND/C91/2011/G6P[X]). The remaining four genes (VP1, VP2, VP3 and NSP2) were more closely related to RVA/Human-wt/ITA/PAI11/1996/G2P[4] (93.5%), RVA/Sheep-wt/CHN/LLR/1985/G10P[15] (88.8%), RVA/Human-tc/SWE/1076/1983/G2P2A[6] (93.2%) and RVA/Human-wt/AUS/CK20003/2000/G2P[4] (91.2%), respectively. Altogether, these findings are suggestive of multiple independent interspecies transmission and reassortment events between co-circulating bovine, porcine, ovine and human rotaviruses. The complete genome sequence information is necessary to establish the evolutionary relationship, interspecies transmission and ecological features of animal RVAs from different geographical regions.