TISSUE DISTRIBUTION OF HANTAVIRUS ANTIGEN IN NATURALLY INFECTED HUMANS AND DEER MICE

The Sin Nombre virus (SNV) is the etiologic agent of hantavirus pulmon ary syndrome in humans but does not cause disease in chronically infec ted deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), the natural host. In this stud y, murine antiserum raised against recombinant SNV nucleocapsid protei n was utilized to localize viral antigen immunohistochemically in tiss ues from both humans (n = 20; 11 positive, 9 negative) and deer mice ( n = 6; 4 positive, 2 negative). Viral infection status was confirmed b y Western blot or reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. SNV antigen was detected ia pulmonary and cardiac endothelium in both spe cies, but positive cells in deer mice were rare, Other deer mouse tiss ues, including kidney, were negative; in contrast, vascular elements o f several tissues from infected humans were positive, with strong stai ning of renal endothelium, The paucity of positive cells in chronicall y infected mice suggests a low virus burden compared with that of acut ely infected humans.