Detection of Multiple Human Sapoviruses from Imported Frozen Individual Clams

Sapovirus (SaV), a member of the family Caliciviridae, is an important acute gastroenteritis pathogen in humans. Consumption of raw or inadequately cooked clams is one transmission route of human SaV. Sixty individual clams (Ruditapes philippinarum) were from market and tested for human SaVs using two nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays, one of which was recently developed and effectively detected human SaV from environmental water samples. The nested RT-PCR effective for water samples showed a higher detection rate (68.3 %, 41 of 60 clams) than the other nested RT-PCR (43.3 %, 26 of 60 clams). Based on the sequence analysis of the partial capsid region, SaV strains detected in this study were classified into nine genotypes: GI.1, GI.3, GI.5, GI.6, GI.7, GII.3, GII.4, GIV.1, and GV.1. We demonstrated for the first time the presence of multiple genogroups and/or genotypes of SaV strains in the individual clams. Using a more sensitive assay such as we described to test individual clam samples will help to identify the source of a SaV-gastroenteritis outbreak.