Detection and molecular characterisation of adenovirus in children under 5 years old with diarrhoea

Background/aim: To determine the frequency, genotype distribution, and genetic relatedness of adenoviruses in children under 5 years old with diarrhoea and to investigate their distribution according to clinical findings, age, months, and seasons. Materials and methods: Stool samples were collected from 180 children with acute gastroenteritis who presented from July 2007 through June 2011 at the Ankara Training and Education Hospital. Stool samples were analysed by immune chromatographic test (ICT), enzyme immunoassay (EIA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). All adenovirus types were determined by nucleotide sequence analysis. A phylogenetic tree was constructed by Mega 6.0 using the neighbour-joining method. Results: Five percent of the samples were positive for adenovirus (9/180) by ICT, 6.1\% (11/180) by EIA, and 13.9\% (25/180) by PCR. Adenovirus gastroenteritis did not show any differences in age group, sex, month, or season. In this study, 16 (64\%) of the PCR positive samples were AdV41, 6 (24\%) were AdV40, 2 (8\%) were AdV31, and 1 (4\%) was AdV7, as determined by nucleotide sequencing. Conclusion: AdV31 and AdV7 were associated with gastroenteritis. Adenovirus serotypes showed a similarity of 80\% (20/25) and 20\% (5/25) with Asian and American serotypes, respectively