The South American Rotavirus Genome Sequencing project is a collaboration between Dr. Gabriel Parra of NIAID and JCVI to conduct a longitudinal examination of 133 Rotavirus A Human (VP7 and VP4) strains collected during the 1990s and 2000s. This collection of samples provides a unique opportunity to study the potential mechanism of evolution used by rotaviruses to persist in a given population and will help to establish a baseline for post-vaccine surveillance in developing countries.

With the data collected during this project we expect to:

• Determine the evolutionary links among strains circulating in different years and different countries.
• Identify residues in rotavirus proteins that undergo change through positive selection due to structural constrains or antigenic pressure.
• Track the evolutionary pathways followed by minor (uncommon) and major (prevalent) strains.
• Corroborate whether the constellations of genes are still maintained in seasons when multiple strains co-circulated at high frequencies.
• Determine the frequency of reassortments among major and minor strains.

The data generated from this project will set the baseline for the diversity of rotavirus genomes during the pre-vaccination period in South-America, and will provide valuable information to the post-vaccination period as well as to the worldwide epidemiological dynamics of rotavirus. Therefore, we expect the data from this project will be of great interest to scientists not only from South-American countries, but worldwide.

White Paper Access

The initial white paper submitted can be downloaded here. Since white papers are not always approved exactly as submitted, this document may not exactly describe the final form of the project. Please contact gsc@jcvi.org if you have any questions.

Funding