Abstract
Orthohantaviruses are globally distributed viruses, associated with rodents and other small mammals. However, data on the circulation of orthohantaviruses within the UK, particularly the UK-endemic Tatenale virus, is sparse. In this study, 531 animals from five rodent species were collected from two locations in northern and central England and screened using a degenerate, pan- orthohantavirus RT-PCR assay. Tatenale virus was detected in a single field vole (Microtus agrestis) from central England and twelve field voles from northern England. Unbiased high-throughput sequencing of the central English strain resulted in the recovery of the complete coding sequence of a novel strain of Tatenale virus, whilst PCR-primer walking of the northern English strain recovered almost complete coding sequence of a previously identified strain. These findings represented the detection of a third lineage of Tatenale virus in the United Kingdom and extended the known geographic distribution of these viruses from northern to central England. Furthermore, the recovery of the complete coding sequence revealed that Tatenale virus was sufficiently related to the recently identified Traemersee virus, to meet the accepted criteria for classification as a single species of orthohantavirus.
Highlights
Orthohantaviruses are a large and diverse genus of viruses, belonging to the Hantaviridae family within the order Bunyavirales
Orthohantavirus RNA was detected in a single field vole from Site 1 (8.3%) and twelve field voles from Site 2 (10%)
Based on a genetic divergence, we proposed that this virus represented an additional strain of Tatenale virus (TATV), tentatively called Norton-Juxta, which extended the known range of TATV from northern to central England
Summary
Orthohantaviruses are a large and diverse genus of viruses, belonging to the Hantaviridae family within the order Bunyavirales. The genome of orthohantaviruses consists of a linear, negative-sensed and single-stranded RNA, divided into three segments. The large (L) segment encodes a single. RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, the medium (M) segment encodes a glycoprotein precursor and the small (S) segment encodes a nucleocapsid protein [1]. Orthohantaviruses have predominantly been associated with rodent reservoir species [2]; they have increasingly been detected in other mammalian taxa, such as bats [3], shrews [4] and moles [5]. Each species of orthohantavirus is typically associated with a single reservoir species, where the infection is considered to be persistent and asymptomatic [6].
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