During 5,230 trapping nights, 672 small mammals were trapped in the areas where
most hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) cases occur in Uruguay. Yellow pygmy
rice rats (Oligoryzomys flavescens) were the only rodents that
showed evidence of antibodies to hantavirus, with a seroprevalence of 2.6%. The
rodents were trapped in all the explored environments, and most of the
seropositive rodents were found in habitats frequented by humans. Nucleotide
sequences were obtained from four HPS case-patients and four yellow pygmy rice
rats of the M genome segment. Sequence comparison and phylogenetic
analysis showed that rodent-borne viruses and viruses from three
HPS case-patients form a well-supported clade and share a 96.4%
identity with the previously characterized Central Plata hantavirus. These
results suggest that yellow pygmy rice rat (O. flavescens) may
be the host for Central Plata, a hantavirus associated with HPS in the southern
area of Uruguay.[
Junin virus strain Candid #1 was developed as a live attenuated vaccine for Argentine haemorrhagic fever. In this paper, we report the nucleotide sequences of L RNA of Candid #1 and examine the relationship to its more virulent ancestors Junin virus XJ#44 and XJ 13 (prototype) and other closely and distantly related arenaviruses. Comparisons of the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of L and Z genes of Candid #1 and its progenitor strains revealed twelve point mutations in the L polypeptide that are unique to the vaccine strain. These changes could be provisionally associated with the attenuated phenotype. In contrast, Z ORF was completely conserved among all strains.
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