2015

Nor-Aziyah Mat-Rahim, Tengku Rogayah Tengku Abdul Rashid, Jeyanthi Suppiah, Ravindran Thayan, Apandi Mohd Yusof and Zainah Sa'at (2015). Nucleocapsid gene analysis from an imported case of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Malaysia. Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease 5(7): 543-546

Objective: To describe the complete nucleocapsid (N) gene region of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) from imported case in Malaysia and the relations with human- and camel-derived MERS-CoV.

Methods: Combination of throat and nasal swab specimens was subjected to viral RNA extraction. For screening, the extracted RNA was subjected to real-time RT-PCR targeting upstream of E gene, open reading frame 1b and open reading frame 1a. For confirmation, the RNA was subjected to RT-PCR targeting partial part of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and nucleocapsid, followed by amplification of complete N gene region. Nucleotide sequencing of the first Malaysian case of MERS-CoV was performed following the confirmation with real-time RT-PCR detection.

Results: Initial analysis of partial RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and N gene revealed that the nucleotides had high similarity to Jeddah_1_2013 strain. Analysis of complete N gene region (1 242 nucleotides) from the case showed high similarity and yet distinct to the nucleotide sequences of camel-derived MERS-CoV.

Conclusions: From the finding, there are possibilities that the patient acquired the infection from zoonotic transmission from dromedary camels.