Rotavirus is known to be important causative agent of acute gastroenteritis in infants and young children all over the world. They also reported that rotavirus infection was prevalent in Korea. For the purpose of serosurvey and subgrouping of
rotaviruses from children hospitalized for diarrhea in Korea, the stool samples were analysed for RNA electrophoretic pattern. The stool samples were also immunoassayed for the presence of rotavirus antigen and the sera were checked for the
presence of
antibody reacting with rotavirus antigen.
Stools and sera from 28 infants or children(mean age 1.72 year) hospitalized for diarrhea in Ewha Womans University hospital from Dec. 1992 to Dec. 1993 were analysed. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay showed that 89.3%(25/28) of the children
with
diarrhea had serum antibody reacting with rotavirus. Dot blot immunoassay showed that 89.3%(25/28) of the stools from children with diarrhea had rotavirus antigen. Two children were negative both for stool rotavirus antigen and for serum antibody
to
rotavirus. However, two children were postive only for either stool antigen or serum antibody. The silver staining patern of SDS-PAGE of RNAs extracted from stools revealed four electropherotypes;typical short(subgroupⅠ), and typical
long(subgroupⅡ)
pattern with eleven bands, and long narrow and long wide patterns in which the 5th and 6th bands were narrow and wide, respectively. Among the 28 samples, 20(71.4%) samples could be analysed for electropherotypes of rotavirus. The
electropherotype
distribution was as follows; 35%(7/20) were long pattern, 20%(4/20) were long wide pattern, 15%(2/20) were long narrow pattern, and 30%(6/20) were short pattern. The stool samples from the two children negative both for stool antigen and for
serum
antibody were also negative for rotavirus RNA electropherotype. The detection of rotavirus RNA was parallel with the detection of rotavirus antigen by dot blot immunoassay when the serum antibody and the stool antigen was contradictory. These
results
suggested that long patterns(70%) of rotaviruses were prevalent in Korea. And the detection rate of rotavirus by RNA electropherotyping of stool samples was slightly less than that by dot blot immunoassay.
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