Genetic analysis of crimean‐congo hemorrhagic fever virus in Iran

Abstract

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a potentially fatal disease caused by a tick-borne virus in the family Bunyavridae. The disease occurs in parts of Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Eastern Europe. During recent years, an increasing number of human CCHF cases have been diagnosed in Iran, but very little information is available on the prevalence and genetic diversity of CCHFV in Iran. In the present study, CCHF virus (CCHFV) isolates from nine Iranian patients infected during 2002 were examined genetically. Nucleotide sequencing of the S- and M-segments, encoding the nucleocapsid protein (NP) and the glycoproteins, respectively, revealed that the different isolates were related closely to each other with nucleotide sequence identities exceeding 98% for both S- and M-segments. Phylogenetic analysis of partial S-segment nucleotide sequences showed that the viruses clustered along with strains from Pakistan and Madagascar in one distinct lineage. Phylogenetic analysis also demonstrated that the Iranian isolates examined in this study and the previously published CCHFV strain ArTeh193-3 clustered into different genetic groups, indicating that at least two genetic lineages of CCHFV could be co-circulating in Iran.

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever: History, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical syndrome and genetic diversity

“…Cases in humans were first observed in 1999, and have since been reported in most provinces (Chinikar et al, 2004;Chinikar et al, 2010). In neighboring Iraq, surveillance was interrupted by civil unrest and war for nearly a decade, but a number of cases of CCHF have recently been reported (Majeed et al, 2012).…”

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever cases in the North of Iran have three distinct origins

“…The partial sequences described in this study have been deposited in the GenBank database under Accession Nos. KT588640, KT588641 and KT588642 [8].…”

“…This method evaluates the topologies of different trees and chooses the best tree based on a specified model. This model is based on the evolutionary process that can account for the conversion of one sequence into another [8].…”

Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever: What Do We Know about Pulmonary Injury? A Compilation of Evidence

“…Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV) is a single-stranded RNA virus with three segments (large, medium, and small), two envelope proteins (Gn and Gc) and an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase [1][2][3]. Studies have found the GC protein to be the target-binding protein as well as an important mediator for virus entry [4]. Variations in small segments of RNA help to group the virus into seven different genotypes designated Africa-1, Africa-2, Africa-3, Europe-1, Europe-2, Asia-1 and Asia2 [5][6][7].…”