Molecular characterization of the RNA S segment of nephropathia epidemica virus strain Hällnäs B1

• Published in: Virology (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 174; no. 1; pp. 79 - 86
• Main Authors: Stohwasser, Ralf, Giebel, Lutz B., Zöller, Lothar, Bautz, Ekkehard K.F., Darai, Gholamreza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 1990; Elsevier
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Base Sequence; Biological and medical sciences; Blotting, Northern; Capsid - genetics; Cloning, Molecular; DNA, Viral - genetics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genes, Viral; Hantavirus - genetics; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Nucleic Acid Hybridization; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Replicative cycle, interference, host-virus relations, pathogenicity, miscellaneous strains; RNA, Viral - genetics; Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; Viral Core Proteins - genetics; Virology; Virus; Proteins; Polymerase chain reaction; Bunyaviridae; Complementary DNA; RNA; Nucleotide sequence; Nucleocapside; Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome virus; Homology; Nucleic acid; Aminoacid sequence
• ISSN: 0042-6822; 1096-0341
• DOI: 10.1016/0042-6822(90)90056-W

The S segment RNA of nephropathia epidemica virus (NEV) strain Hällnäs 131 was isolated by molecular cloning of the corresponding cDNA. The RNA is 1785 nucleotides long with the 3′ and 5′ termini being complementary for 23 bases. The viral messenger-sense RNA contains one major open reading frame (ORF) with a coding capacity of 433 amino acids encoding a 49-kDa polypeptide. Compared to the Hantaan S segment cDNA sequence there is a nucleotide homology of 60 and 61% at the amino acid level. Many of the amino acid differences are conservative exchanges. The C-termini of the NEV and Hantaan nucleocapsid proteins are nearly identical and the hydrophilicity profiles are very similar. In contrast, the following differences are significant: The calculated isoelectric points of the NEV and Hantaan nucleocapsid proteins are 5.6 and 6.7, respectively. The most prominent antigenic determinants predicted by the hydrophilicity profiles are located close to the C-terminus of NEV and close to the N-terminus of Hantaan virus nucleocapsid polypeptides.