Proposal for a unified norovirus nomenclature and genotyping

Annelies Kroneman*, Everardo Vega, Harry Vennema, Jan Vinjé, Peter A. White, Grant Hansman, Kim Green, Vito Martella, Kazuhiko Katayama, Marion Koopmans

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

465 Citations (Scopus)
15 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Noroviruses belong to a genus of genetically diverse viruses within the family Caliciviridae and cause acute gastroenteritis in humans and animals. They are subdivided into genogroups, each of which further segregates into genotypes. Until recently, a new genotype was based on a defined pairwise distance cutoff of complete VP1 sequences, but with the increasing number of available norovirus sequences, this cutoff is no longer accurate, and sequences in the public database have been misclassified. In this paper, we demonstrate that the pairwise distance cutoff method can no longer be used and outline a phylogenetic approach to classify noroviruses. Furthermore, we propose a dual nomenclature using both ORF1 and VP1 sequences, as recombination is common and recognizing recombinant viruses may be relevant. With the continuing emergence of new norovirus lineages, we propose to coordinate nomenclature of new norovirus genotypes through an international norovirus working group.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2059-2068
Number of pages10
JournalArchives of Virology
Volume158
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2013

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