Molecular characterization of two novel echovirus 18 recombinants associated with hand-foot-mouth disease

Human echovirus 18 (E-18) is a member of the enterovirus B species. To date, sixteen full-length genome sequences of E-18 are available in the GenBank database. In this study, we describe the complete genomic characterization of two E-18 strains isolated in Yunnan, China. Pairwise comparisons of the nucleotide sequences and the deduced amino acid sequences revealed that the two Yunnan E-18 strains had 87.5% nucleotide identity and 96.3–96.5% amino acid identity with the Chinese strain. Phylogenetic and bootscanning analyses revealed the two E-18 strains had the highest identity with other several EV-B serotypes than the other E-18 strains in the P3 coding region, especially, 3B region of the Swine Vesicular disease virus (SVDV) strain HK70, indicated that frequent intertypic recombination might have occurred in the two Yunnan strains. This study contributes the complete genome sequences of E-18 to the GenBank database and provides valuable information on the molecular epidemiology of E-18 in China.