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Isolation, Characterization, and Phylogenetic Analysis of Two New Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Strains from the Northern Region of Xinjiang Province, China

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Virologica Sinica

Abstract

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) caused by the CCHF virus (CCHFV) is a tick-borne natural focal disease with a mortality rate of approximately 50%. CCHFV is widely prevalent in Africa, southern Asia, the Middle East, and southeast Europe. CCHF outbreaks have been reported previously in Xinjiang province, China, especially in its southern region. Epidemiological surveys conducted on ticks and animals have revealed the presence of CCHFV strains in ticks, rodents, and infected individuals from cities and counties in southern Xinjiang. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the Chinese CCHFV strains belong to one genotype, based on complete sequences of the S segments of its negative-stranded RNA genome. The present study reports two new CCHFV strains isolated from Hyalomma asiaticum asiaticum ticks collected from Fukang City and Wujiaqu City in the northern region of Xinjiang. Viral characteristics and their evolutionary relationships were analyzed through metagenomic and reverse-transcription PCR analyses; these analyses indicated that the genotype of both strains was different from that of other Chinese strains. Furthermore, previous reports of CCHFV in Xinjiang were reviewed and phylogenetic analyses were performed. CCHFV was found to prevail in Fukang City in Junggar Basin for more than 20 years, and that Fukang City and Wujiaqu City are considered natural reservoirs of different genotypes of CCHFV strains. Our findings facilitate the understanding of CCHFV distribution in Xinjiang province and provide insights into the evolutionary relationships among Chinese CCHFV strains.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Basic Work Program (2013FY113500) and the National Key Research and Development Program (2016YFE0113500) from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 EVAg project (No 653316).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Yanfang Zhang, Shu Shen, Yaohui Fang, Jinliang Liu, Zhengyuan Su, Jinhao Liang, Zhong Zhang, Qiaoli Wu, Zhihong Hu & Fei Deng

  2. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous’ Region, Ürümqi, 830002, Xinjiang, China

    Cheng Wang, Abulikemu Abudurexiti & Yujiang Zhang

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  1. Yanfang Zhang
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  2. Shu Shen
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  3. Yaohui Fang
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  4. Jinliang Liu
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  5. Zhengyuan Su
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  6. Jinhao Liang
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  7. Zhong Zhang
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  9. Cheng Wang
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  11. Zhihong Hu
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  12. Yujiang Zhang
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  13. Fei Deng
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Contributions

YZ, JL, CW and AA collected and processed the ticks for the inoculation of suckling mice; YZ and JL performed the first mice inoculation and harvested the tissue samples; YZ and JL passaged the two virus strains on newborn mice; YZ, ZZ and QW performed the virus infection and analyzed the virus production on Vero cells; YZ, ZS, YF and SS analysis all the work; ZH, YZ and FD conceived of the study; YZ and SS wrote the manuscript; YZ and FD checked and finalized the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yujiang Zhang or Fei Deng.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Animal and Human Rights Statement

Animal experiments in this study were approved by the ethics committees of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Approval Number: WIVH01201501).

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Zhang, Y., Shen, S., Fang, Y. et al. Isolation, Characterization, and Phylogenetic Analysis of Two New Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Strains from the Northern Region of Xinjiang Province, China. Virol. Sin. 33, 74–86 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-018-0020-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-018-0020-7

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