title: Detection of Muerto Canyon virus RNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
abstract: To determine if Muerto Canyon Virus (MCV) RNA is present in the peripheral blood of patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for MCV RNA was used on blood samples from 20 seropositive case-patients. RNA was prepared from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) or blood clot (or both) from 19 and from plasma from 11 case-patients. All 12 blood clot, all 13 PBMC, and 8 of 11 plasma preparations produced an MCV amplification product after RT-PCR with primers from the G2 gene. All of 5 PBMC RNA preparations tested were positive using unnested primers in S segment. Nucleotide sequences were determined for 16 G2 amplimers and 4 S segment amplimers, verifying that unique MCV cDNA sequences were amplified. Viral RNA became undetectable in 5 of 7 convalescent samples tested but was present up to day 23 of illness in 2 case-patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque 87131.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hjelle
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Spiropoulou
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Torrez-Martinez
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morzunov
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Nichol
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers; D006476:Orthohantavirus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D018804:Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000821:virology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009504:Neutrophils / Q000821:virology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D012367:RNA, Viral