Prevalence of Hantavirus Infection in Rodent Populations in Taiwan Determined by Real-time Quantitative PCR, Nested RT-PCR and Indirect Immunofluorescene Assay
Date Issued
2006
Date
2006
Author(s)
Tsai, Hsiao-Yun
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
Hantaviruses, which belonged to the family Bunyaviridae and genus Hantavirus, cause two serious and often fatal human diseases, namely hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in Eurasia and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in Americas. In nature, hantaviruses are exclusively maintained in the populations of their specific rodent hosts and cause a persistent, asymptomatic infection. Humans, as accidental hosts, become infected by inhaling or ingesting or contacting with virus contaminated aerosol generated from urine, feces, and/or saliva shedded by infected rodents. To provide the basic epidemiological information for the disease control, we use nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunoflurescence assay to investigate the hantavirus infection rate in rodent population in Taiwan. Since rodents are persistent infected with hantavirus, we used the real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction to evaluate the virus load in various tissues, and compared the viral load between the nature hosts and spillover hosts. The hantavirus strains prevalent in Taiwan were Seoul virus (SEOV), and the sequence homology among the SEOV strains were found to be 95.8-100 %. There were a total of 320 rodents captured and the virus prevalence was 24.69 %. Rattus norvegicus was the most common carrier and other spillover hosts included Suncus murinus or Rattus flavipectus or Bandicota indica. The hantavirus could be detected all the year round but especially common in the spring, fall and winter, although such a difference was not statistically significant (P＞0.05). The hantavirus prevalence in rodent in Southern Taiwan and offshore islets was much higher than in Eastern Taiwan, although such a difference was not statistically significant (P＞0.05). By real time RT-PCR, lungs of the carrier rodent had the highest mean viral load (6.308 x 103 ± 4.110 x 101 copies/mg), however, it was lower than the virus load of previous study using Sin Nombre virus (SNV) in experimentally infected rodents. It is suggested that the virus load in the experimental infection model is different from the nature infection. The viral load in the spillover host is lower than that in the nature host, suggesting further support on the notion that hantavirus co-evolved with their specific hosts over a very long time.
Subjects
漢他病毒
Hantavirus
SDGs
Type
thesis
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