Isolation and characterization of canine astrovirus in China

In this study, we first investigated the prevalence of astrovirus in stools of dogs with and without diarrhea in Shanghai, China. Of all the specimens, 22 (12.02%) from the 183 dogs with diarrhea and none (0%) from the 138 healthy controls were positive for astrovirus. Furthermore, we cloned partial sequences of ORF1b (442 bp) and the entire sequences of ORF2 (2475 bp). Phylogenetic analysis showed that the new isolates were belonged to genus Mamastrovirus and most closely clustered with the Italy strain, based on the ORF2 sequences available. However, the new isolates and the Italy strain were divided into two different clusters. The new isolates may be a new strain of canine astrovirus.