ISOLATION OF THE CAUSATIVE AGENT OF HANTAVIRUS PULMONARY SYNDROME

Investigation of a recent outbreak of acute respiratory illness in the southwestern United States resulted in the recognition of a new disea se, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) with high mortality. Different animals and cell lines were used in attempts to isolate the causative agent. A previously unknown hantavirus was passaged in laboratory-bre d deer mice, recovered from lung tissues of a deer mouse, Peromyscus m aniculatus, and propagated in the E6 clone of Vero cells. Virus antige n was readily detected in the infected cells by an indirect immunofluo rescence assay, using convalescent-phase sera from HPS patients. By el ectron microscopy, the virus was shown to have the typical morphologic features of members of the genus Hantavirus, family Bunyaviridae. Vir us sequences corresponded to those previously detected by a nested rev erse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay of hantavirus-infec ted specimens from rodents and humans. This newly recognized virus, th e etiologic agent of HPS, has been tentatively named Muerto Canyon vir us.