title: Puumala hantavirus and Myodes glareolus in northern Europe: no evidence of co-divergence between genetic lineages of virus and host.
abstract: The genus Hantavirus (family Bunyaviridae) includes negative-strand RNA viruses that are carried by persistently infected rodent and insectivore species. Puumala virus (PUUV), carried by bank voles (Myodes glareolus), is a pathogenic hantavirus that causes outbreaks of mild haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome across Europe. In northern Europe, PUUV is represented by several genetic lineages that are maintained by distinct phylogroups of bank voles. The present study describes sequences of new PUUV strains recovered from northern and southern regions of Scandinavia and compares phylogenetic relationships between north-European PUUV strains and M. glareolus. This analysis revealed contradictions in phylogenetic clustering and remarkable differences in estimated divergence times between the lineages of PUUV and its host, suggesting that the established PUUV lineages did not co-diverge with the distinct phylogroups of M. glareolus that carry them at present.
authors.affiliation: Department of Virology, Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, SE-171 82 Solna, Sweden. kirillnemirov@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Kirill
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nemirov
authors.forename: Herwig
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Leirs
authors.forename: Ake
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lundkvist
authors.forename: Gert E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Olsson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003411:Arvicolinae / Q000821:virology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005060:Europe; D005838:Genotype; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D029262:Puumala virus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral