Affiliations 

  • 1 Institut für Virologie, Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover, Germany
  • 2 Institut für Virologie, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany
  • 3 Institut für Medizinische Virologie, Universitätsklinikum Tübingen, Germany
  • 4 Institut für Virologie, Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover, Germany; Deutsches Zentrum Infektionsforschung, Hannover und Braunschweig, Germany
  • 5 Institut für Virologie, Medizinische Hochschule, Hannover, Germany; Netzwerk Atemwegsinfektionen des Robert-Koch-Institutes, Adenovirus Konsiliarlabor, Germany. Electronic address: heim.albert@mh-hannover.de
J Infect, 2014 Nov;69(5):490-9.
PMID: 24975176 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinf.2014.06.015

Abstract

Between 2005 and 2013 six severe pneumonia cases (all requiring mechanical ventilation, two fatal outcomes) caused by human adenovirus type 21 (HAdV-B21) were observed in Germany. So far, HAdV-B21 was mainly associated with non-severe upper and lower respiratory tract infections. However, a few highly virulent HAdV types, e.g. HAdV-B14p1, were previously associated with severe, fatal pneumonia. Complete genomic sequences of the German HAdV-B21 pneumonia isolates formed a single phylogenetic cluster with very high sequence identity (≥ 99.897%). Compared to the HAdV-B21 prototype (only 99.319% identity), all isolates had a unique 15 amino acid deletion and a 2 amino acid insertion in the RGD loop of the penton base which may affect binding to the secondary receptor on the host cells. Moreover, a recombinant E4 gene region derived of HAdV-B3 was identified by bootscan analysis. Thus, the highly virulent, pneumotropic HAdV-B21 was denominated as subtype 21a. Surprisingly, there was 99.963% identity with agent Y/SIBU97 (only 13.4 kb available in GenBank of the 35.4 kb genome) which was associated with 10 fatalities due to cardiopulmonary failure in Sarawak, Malaysia, in 1997. In conclusion, a HAdV-B21 subtype (21a) associated with severe pneumonia in Germany was phylogenetically linked to an adenovirus isolated in Malaysia.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.