Diagnosis of Hantavirus Infections

Hantavirus is a genus in the family Bunyaviridae that includes small mammal-borne viruses. These viruses are causative of severe human diseases such as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in Asia and Europe and cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) in the Americas. Hantaviruses are 80- to 120-nm enveloped RNA viruses. Their negative-sense single-stranded genome has approximately 12, 000 nucleotides and is divided into three fragments named S (small), M (medium), and L (large) (1). The S fragment encodes the nucleoprotein (N), the M segment encodes the envelope glycoproteins (Gn and Gc), and the viral RNA (vRNA)-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), the largest viral protein (250 to 280 kDa), is codified by the L segment. The viral RNA segments are circular, include base-paired inverted complementary sequences at the 3′ and 5′ ends, and wrap up by the N protein (1). An open reading frame encoding NSs can be found in American hantavirus and in the vole-borne Puumala and Tula viruses, all evolutionarily related (2, 3).