Genetic Diversity of Dengue Virus in Clinical Specimens from Bangkok, Thailand, during 2018–2020: Co-Circulation of All Four Serotypes with Multiple Genotypes and/or Clades

Abstract

Dengue is an arboviral disease highly endemic in Bangkok, Thailand. To characterize the current genetic diversity of dengue virus (DENV), we recruited patients with suspected DENV infection at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Bangkok, during 2018–2020. We determined complete nucleotide sequences of the DENV envelope region for 111 of 276 participant serum samples. All four DENV serotypes were detected, with the highest proportion being DENV-1. Although all DENV-1 sequences were genotype I, our DENV-1 sequences were divided into four distinct clades with different distributions in Asian countries. Two genotypes of DENV-2 were identified, Asian I and Cosmopolitan, which were further divided into two and three distinct clades, respectively. In DENV-3, in addition to the previously dominant genotype III, a cluster of 6 genotype I viruses only rarely reported in Thailand was also observed. All of the DENV-4 viruses belonged to genotype I, but they were separated into three distinct clades. These results indicated that all four serotypes of DENV with multiple genotypes and/or clades co-circulate in Bangkok. Continuous investigation of DENV is warranted to further determine the relationship between DENV within Thailand and neighboring countries in Southeast Asia and Asia.

Climate, demography, immunology, and virology combine to drive two decades of dengue virus dynamics in Cambodia

“…By contrast, the majority of DENV-2 sequences in the Cosmopolitan III lineage demonstrated high divergence from previously reported sequences (only in the Asian-1 lineage) for Cambodia, with a tMRCA of approximately 83.8 years (MRCA at 1936, 95% HPD: 1932-1941). DENV-2 Cosmopolitan sequences recovered from Cambodia in 2019 and 2020 showed the highest similarity to sequences previously derived from recent DENV-2 Cosmopolitan outbreaks in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand 22,39,42 .…”

KIR2DL2, KIR2DL5A and KIR2DL5B genes induce susceptibility to dengue virus infection while KIR3DL3 and KIR2DS5 confers protection

“…According to Lu et al (2008), genotypes and haplotypes containing more activating genes may play an important role in the infection or clearance of certain viruses. 34 The main limitation of this study is that we only characterized the KIR genes, but not the KIR/HLA combination, and we did not notify Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever cases (DHF).…”

“…An individual infected with one of them is immunized for life against this serotype but only acquires transient and partial immunity against the other serotypes. Consequently, this disease has no cross-protective immunity, 35 so a single person can have up to four episodes of dengue fever in their lifetime. Primary dengue fever is thus distinguished from secondary Dengue through the analysis or diagnostics of the kinetics of anti-IgM and anti-IgG antibodies and of viremia.…”

Diagnostic Performance of Dengue NS1 and Antibodies by Serum Concentration Technique

“…The viral RNA was eluted in 50 μL of nuclease-free water and stored at −80 °C until analysis. The DENV serotyping was detected by Quantitative Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) kit (Sacace Biotechnologies, Como, Italy) on the CFX96 Touch Real-Time Detection System (Bio-Rad) using previously described primer pairs and protocols [ 13 ].…”