The genome of HEVs is subject to frequent recombination [30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36] , with interspecies exchanges observed in the 59UTR [37] . Palmenberg et al. (2009) have observed intraspecies recombination in three HRV-A, with structural characteristics and phylogenetic evidence that suggests a novel clade D classification [16] . Tapparel et al. (2009) observed phylogenetic incongruities in 59 UTR, VP1 and 3CD sequences of two clinical isolates of HRV-A related to recombination [38] . We observed incongruent clustering of N12, N44 and N48 strains of HRV-A species in the phylogenetic trees based on the 59UTR or the VP4/VP2 regions of their genomes (Figs. 1 and 2, Table 3 ), which suggests intraspecies recombination in the 59UTR.