Group A Rotavirus NSP4 is Under Negative Selective Pressure

TL;DR

This study investigates the evolutionary pressures on rotavirus NSP4, revealing it is predominantly under negative selection, which suggests conservation of its amino acid sequence across strains.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of selective pressure on NSP4, demonstrating its evolutionary conservation and lack of positive selection.

Findings

84.57% of NSP4 amino acids are under negative selection

No sites under positive selection detected

Supports conservation of NSP4 across rotavirus strains

Abstract

Rotavirus (RV) is the major etiologic agent of severe infantile gastroenteritis; its genome has 11 segments of double stranded RNA, encoding 12 proteins. The non-structural protein 4 (NSP4) encoded by segment 10 is multifunctional. The aim of this study is to analyze the selective pressure driving the NSP4 of RV, through the ratio of non-synonymous substitutions per synonymous substitutions (dN/dS). Our results show that NSP4 is under negative evolutionary pressure (84.57% of the amino acid sequence) and no site was found under positive selection. This may support other evolutionary studies of different RV proteins or viral agents.