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Abstract

Full-length Sequencing and Genotyping of Hepatitis A Virus among Acute Hepatic Patients in Iran by Hossein Heydari, Ahmad Majd, Mojtaba Hamidi-Fard, Golnaz Bahramali, Mohammad R. Aghasadeghi

Background: Given the lack of access to a full-length sequence of hepatitis A virus (HAV) and scarce information about its circulating genotype, sub-type and strain in Iran, two specimens were isolated from two patients with clinical symptoms of acute HAV to determine the full-length sequence of HAV. Following the phylogenetic and molecular study, we determined HAV genotype, sub-genotype, and strain of circulating virus in Iran.
Methods: According to real-time PCR results, 16 pairs of overlapped specific primers were used to determine the full-length sequence of HAV by whole-genome amplification (WGA) and using the Sanger method. Moreover, the results were assessed using Chromas, CLC Genomics Workbench, Mega 6, and RDP software.
Results: The full-length genome of HAV was amplified and sequenced with a length of 7,182 nucleotides. According to the obtained sequences, the phylogenetic tree of the mentioned viruses was drawn using MEGA 6 software and 44 full-genome viruses registered in the GenBank worldwide. Afterwards, the same process was repeated based on the protein sequence of VP1-P2A fragment in Iranian samples along with the other 22 registered protein sequences of GenBank to confirm the results of the full-genome phylogenetic tree.
Conclusions: In this study, complete sequencing of two HAV specimens was carried out using the overlapping amplification and Sanger methods. According to the results of the phylogenetic tree, the circulating HAV in Iran had Genotype I and sub-genotype B and strain HM-175. In the present study, the full sequences of HAV of the two specimens were registered with accession numbers of BankIt 2277890/MN746031 and BankIt 2287607/MN746032.

DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2020.200919