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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2006, p. 6381-6387, Vol. 72, No. 9
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AEM.02621-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Molecular Epidemiology of Echoviruses 11 and 13, Based on an Environmental Surveillance Conducted in Toyama Prefecture, 2002-2003
Masae Iwai,1,
Hiromu Yoshida,2,
*
Kumiko Matsuura,1
Tsuguto Fujimoto,3
Hiroyuki Shimizu,2
Takenori Takizawa,1 and
Yoshiyuki Nagai1
Department of Virology, Toyama Institute of Health, Nakataikouyama, Kosugi-machi, Imizu-shi, Toyama 939-0363, Japan,1
Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Gakuen 4-7-1, Musashimurayama, Tokyo 208-0011, Japan,2
Infectious Disease Research Division, Hyogo Prefectural Institute of Public Health and Environmental Sciences, 2-1-29 Arata-cho, Hyogo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 652-0032, Japan3
Received 7 November 2005/
Accepted 5 July 2006

ABSTRACT
Nineteen echovirus 11 (E11) and 12 E13 isolates were isolated
from three rivers in Toyama Prefecture, Japan, during an environmental
surveillance conducted from April 2002 to March 2003. The nucleotide
sequences of E13 isolates were closely related to those from
patients with aseptic meningitis, with less than 1.3% divergence
in the VP1 region of the viral capsid gene, and belonged to
the same clade responsible for a worldwide outbreak that started
in 2000. In contrast, E11 isolates were clustered into three
genomic groups and were not closely related to echovirus strains
isolated from patients. These results suggest that the combination
of both virus isolation from environmental sources and phylogenetic
analysis could be complementary assessment approaches to trace
prevalent and minor circulating enteroviruses in the human population.

INTRODUCTION
Environmental surveillance has been conducted in Toyama Prefecture,
Japan, four times since 1979 in order to study enteric virus
water pollution (
18-
20). Assessment of enteric viruses found
in the environment also plays a role in understanding virus
circulation in the community (
26,
27). In particular, environmental
surveillance for human poliovirus (genus
Enterovirus) under
an eradication program is reported to be the most sensitive
method to detect wild or vaccine-derived polioviruses circulating
in the human population (
7,
32,
33).
Large outbreaks of aseptic meningitis caused by human echovirus 13 (E13) (genus Enterovirus) have been reported in various areas in the world since 2000 (3, 4, 22, 23, 30). In addition, a nationwide outbreak of aseptic meningitis caused by E13 occurred in Japan during the summer of 2002 (19) after a small outbreak in a limited area in 2001. According to an Infectious Agents Surveillance Report of Japan, E13 was the most common causative agent (67.2%) isolated from aseptic meningitis patients in 2002, followed by human echovirus 11 (E11) (genus Enterovirus) (12.3%) (10). However, E13 had not been isolated clinically during the previous 20 years in Japan (9), and its isolation was rare until 2000. Thus, the outbreaks of aseptic meningitis caused by E13 seem to be a case of reemerging enterovirus infection (21, 29).
Human enterovirus infection is known to be generally asymptomatic, and thus, environmental surveillance has been reported to be a sensitive method to detect silently circulating viruses (26, 27). We show here several enteroviruses isolated during an environmental surveillance conducted in Toyama, and we especially analyzed E13 and E11 phylogenetically and compared their genetic sequences to available clinical isolates.

Virus isolation from rivers.
Water samples (800 ml each) were collected from fixed points
of three rivers (Oyabe, Itachi, and Sembo) (Fig.
1) twice a
month from April 2002 to March 2003, as described previously
(
18). On the day of collection, samples were concentrated using
a negatively charged membrane filter (mixed cellulose ester
membrane filter; Advantec Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) as described
previously (
18). After the initial collection, water samples
were centrifuged at 3,000 rpm for 30 min, MgCl
2 was added to
the supernatant to a final concentration of 0.05 M, and the
pH was adjusted to 3.5. The samples were then absorbed to the
filter under positive pressure. Absorbents on the filter were
next eluted with 3% beef extract solution by sonication for
5 min and then centrifuged at 12,000 rpm for 30 min. The supernatants
were collected and stored at 4°C until virus isolation.
A total of 0.2 ml of the supernatant was inoculated onto Vero,
MA104, RD-18S, and Hep2 cell lines. Eight tubes for each cell
line were used for virus isolation (
18). Isolates were identified
by specific antisera against each enterovirus (Denka Co. Ltd.,
Tokyo, Japan). Reoviruses (mammalian orthoreovirus) were characterized
using neutralization and hemagglutination inhibition tests with
type-specific antisera (
19).
A total of 171 viruses were isolated at fixed points of three rivers in Toyama twice a month from April 2002 to March 2003 (Table 1). Reoviruses were the most common virus isolates, followed by E11 and E13. Three isolates could not be typed. Cell lines in which viruses were isolated are shown in Table S2 of the supplemental material.
There were two periods when viruses were frequently isolated:
one was from July to September 2002, and the other was from
December 2002 to February 2003 (Fig.
2). Twelve E13 strains
were isolated from May to December 2002. Nineteen E11 strains
were isolated from September 2002 to January 2003. Most reoviruses
were isolated in the latter periods, although they were isolated
throughout the season.
Type 2 poliovirus was isolated in November 2002 after a routine
immunization scheduled during the previous month. Differentiation
of poliovirus isolates was performed by PCR-restriction fragment
length polymorphism and sequencing methods as described previously
(
34), and isolates were characterized as vaccine type (data
not shown).

Virus isolation from patients with aseptic meningitis.
Clinical specimens (stool, cerebral spinal fluid, and throat
swab) from seven aseptic meningitis patients diagnosed in Toyama
in 2002 were used for virus isolation as described previously
(
13,
31). Five E13 viruses were also isolated from one stool
specimen, two cerebral spinal fluid specimens, and two throat
swabs from seven patients with aseptic meningitis in June and
July 2002. Eight E11 isolates from aseptic meningitis patients
collected between 1993 and 1998 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan,
were also used for analysis.

RT-PCR and nucleotide sequence analysis.
E13 and E11 isolates were used for sequencing analysis. The
viral RNA was extracted from virus fluid using a QIAamp Viral
RNA Mini kit (QIAGEN, MD) and was then used for reverse transcription-PCR
(RT-PCR) (Access RT-PCR system; Promega, WI). For amplification
of the partial VP1 region of the viral capsid protein, two sets
of panenterovirus degenerate primers described previously by
Oberste et al. were used (
24). Briefly, for amplification of
the region upstream of VP1, sense primer 187 and antisense primer
222 were used, and for amplification of the downstream region,
sense primer 012 and antisense primer 011 were used (
24). RT-PCR
was carried out under the following conditions: reverse transcription
at 48°C for 45 min, inactivation at 94°C for 2 min,
and 35 cycles of annealing at 50°C for 10 s, polymerization
at 65°C for 1 min, and denaturation at 94°C for 10 s.
After 35 cycles, an additional elongation step of 65°C for
1 min was done. The PCR product was purified by using a QIAquick
PCR purification kit (QIAGEN) and directly sequenced using a
PRISM BigDye Terminator cycle sequencing reaction kit on an
automated DNA sequencer (Perkin-Elmer Applied Biosystems) as
described previously (
31).
Genetic relationships among E13 isolates or E11 isolates were analyzed by MEGA 3.1 software (16) using the partial VP1 region of E13 (703 bp; positions 2579 to 3281 on strain Del Carmen) and of E11 (561 bp; positions 2765 to 3325 on strain Gregory). Phylogenetic trees were constructed by neighbor-joining methods after estimation of genetic distance using the Kimura two-parameter method (14). The transition/transversion rate was set at 2.0, and a bootstrapping test was performed 1,000 times (8).
Sixty-one- and 51-nucleotide sequences of E13 and E11, respectively, were available in GenBank. The strains are represented as accession no./country or city/year/strain code using the reference or Web data in GenBank (1, 2, 5, 12, 15, 25).
The nucleotide sequences of E11 and E13 isolates were phylogenetically compared. For E13, the nucleotide divergence was less than 1.3% among isolates from the three rivers in the partial VP1 region (703 bp). The nucleotide sequence divergence was 0.9 to 1.3% between 12 environmental isolates and 5 clinical isolates, and at most, one amino acid substitution was found. Therefore, environmental isolates were closely related to clinical isolates in Toyama Prefecture (Fig. 3a). Compared to 19 other isolates from Japan during 2001 to 2002 found in GenBank, the divergence was 1.2 to 1.6%, with, at most, one amino acid substitution. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all E13 isolates in Japan belonged to the same cluster (Fig. 3a).
Moreover, isolates in Toyama from both environmental sources
and patients were compared with the other E13 sequences available
from GenBank, including the above-mentioned 19 strains from
Japan. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the Toyama isolates
belonged to the major genomic group labeled as the 2000-2002
cluster in Fig.
3b, which was described previously by other
studies (
1,
2,
5,
12,
15). Divergence of nucleotide sequences
between Toyama isolates and others in this group was 1.9 to
2.5% (amino acid divergence, 0.3 to 0.7%), indicating that these
Toyama isolates belonged to the major genomic group circulating
worldwide.
On the other hand, nucleotide sequences of E11 were phylogenetically analyzed and antigenically categorized into two major strains: strain Gregory as the prototype and strain Silva as prime type (Fig. 4). There were several kinds of subgenotypes within these two major strains (6, 25). Although E11 was not isolated from patients in Toyama during the period of this study, 19 E11 samples were isolated from the three rivers. Eight clinical isolates from Hyogo Prefecture between 1993 and 1998 were also used in the analysis together with the 51 E11 sequences available in GenBank.
Environmental isolates were divided into three genomic groups,
groups I, II, and III (Fig.
4). Seventeen isolates fell into
major genomic group I, with 1.5 to 2.1% nucleotide divergence
within the partial VP1 region (561 bp). Oberste et al. previously
described that the genomic group of Silva consisted of five
subgroups, subgroups D1 to D5 (
25). Toyama isolates had a mean
of 18.3% divergence in nucleotides compared to the E11 Silva
strain and only 3.9 to 5.1% divergence compared to the 1999-2000
D5 subgroup. Therefore, we classified Toyama isolates as belonging
to subgroup D5. Moreover, nucleotide sequences of these isolates
were very similar to aseptic meningitis isolates from Fukoaka
City in 2001 (nucleotide divergence, 1.8 to 2.3%). Clinical
isolates from Hyogo in 1993 and 1998 (group IV) were categorized
as belonging to subgenomic group D4 from 1970 to 2001 (Fig.
4). I17(2)-1 (group III) and S19(1)-1 (group II) isolates were
classified as belonging the Gregory genomic group and had nucleotide
divergences from the genomic group of 21.2 to 24.0% and 18.9
to 21.5%, respectively.

Concluding remarks.
There was a large outbreak of aseptic meningitis caused by E13
in the summer of 2002 in Japan, which coincided with a small
outbreak caused by E11 (
9). The aim of this study was to assess
the performance of an environmental surveillance of river water
isolates compared with isolates from clinical samples. These
viruses were also isolated from the rivers in Toyama Prefecture
by environmental surveillance. E13 was detected not only in
Toyama Prefecture but also in other places in Japan simultaneously.
The phylogenetic analysis of E13 showed that the isolates from
both river waters and patients belonged to the same genomic
cluster, one of the major genotypes circulating worldwide since
2000.
E11 was recently detected during the autumn/winter from river water in Toyama and was compared to isolates from elsewhere in Japan. Although there was no outbreak of aseptic meningitis in Toyama, E11 might have been silently circulating in the human population. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the isolates were divided into three genomic groups: isolates in group I belonging to the Silva genomic group, which seemed to be circulating mainly in Toyama, and minor E11 isolates of I17(2)-1 or S19(1)-1 belonging to the Gregory genomic group, which also seemed to be circulating in other areas of Japan. Thus, this environmental survey was capable of detecting enteroviruses of different genomic groups with high sensitivity and was capable of tracing minor circulating viruses.
In addition, many reoviruses were isolated during the surveillance, most frequently between December 2002 and February 2003. Matsuura et al. suggested in a previous study (19) that stool from not only humans but also animals might have contaminated the waters.
Since there were only a few reports of E11 and E13 isolation in Japan between 2003 and 2005 (11) according to the Infectious Agents Surveillance Report, these viruses appeared to temporarily cease circulation or to circulate silently. This report shows that the combination of conventional virus isolation from environmental sources together with phylogenetic analysis of clinical isolates is a useful approach in understanding enterovirus circulation and transmission. Therefore, environmental surveillance should be considered a complementary assessment tool to trace prevalent and minor enteroviruses circulating in the human population.

Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.
The sequence data in this study were deposited in GenBank under
accession no. AB239081 to AB239124.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to T. Miyamura (National Institute of Infectious
Diseases) for critical review and helpful discussion.
This report was supported by grants-in-aid for research on re-emerging infectious diseases from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Gakuen 4-7-1, Musashimurayama, Tokyo 208-0011, Japan. Phone: 81-42-561-0771. Fax: 81-42-561-4729. E-mail:
hyoshida{at}nih.go.jp.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/. 
M.I. and H.Y. contributed equally to this work. 

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2006, p. 6381-6387, Vol. 72, No. 9
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AEM.02621-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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