DETECTION OF MUERTO CANYON VIRUS-RNA IN PERIPHERAL-BLOOD MONONUCLEAR-CELLS FROM PATIENTS WITH HANTAVIRUS PULMONARY SYNDROME

To determine if Muerto Canyon Virus (MCV) RNA is present in the periph eral blood of patients with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a reverse t ranscriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for MCV RNA was used on blood samples from 20 seropositive case-patients. RNA was prep ared from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) or blood clot (or both) from 19 and from plasma from 11 case-patients. All 12 blood clot , all 13 PBMC, and 8 of 11 plasma preparations produced an MCV amplifi cation product after RT-PCR with primers from the G2 gene. All of 5 PB MC RNA preparations tested were positive using unnested primers in S s egment. Nucleotide sequences were determined for 16 G2 amplimers and 4 S segment amplimers, verifying that unique MCV cDNA sequences were am plified. Viral RNA became undetectable in 5 of 7 convalescent samples tested but was present up to day 23 of illness in 2 case-patients.