Detection of shrew-borne hantavirus in Eurasian pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus) in Central Europe Lukáš Radosa a,b , Mathias Schlegel c , Petra Gebauer d , Hermann Ansorge d , Marta Heroldová e , Eva Jánová e , Michal Stanko f,g , Ladislav Mošansky ´ g , Jana Fric ˇová g , Milan Pejc ˇoch h , Josef Suchomel i , Luboš Purchart i , Martin H. Groschup c , Detlev H. Krüger a , Rainer G. Ulrich c , Boris Klempa a,b,⇑ a Institute of Medical Virology, Helmut-Ruska-Haus, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany b Institute of Virology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia c Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Institute for Novel and Emerging Infectious Diseases, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany d Senckenberg Museum of Natural History, Görlitz, Germany e Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Brno, Czech Republic f Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia g Institute of Parasitology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovakia h National Institute of Public Health, Prague and National Reference Laboratory for Monitoring of Environmental Biotic Factors, Brno, Czech Republic i Department of Forest Ecology, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic article info Article history: Available online xxxx Keywords: Hantavirus Shrew Sorex minutus Asikkala virus Central Europe abstract Recently, it was found that not only rodents but also shrews are reservoir hosts of hantaviruses. In Central Europe, only Seewis virus, associated with the Eurasian common shrew (Sorex araneus), has been recog- nized until now. In the present report, tissue samples from shrews belonging to Crocidurinae and Soric- inae subfamilies, trapped in Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia, were screened for the presence of novel hantaviruses. Three new hantavirus partial L-segment sequences were obtained from pygmy shrews (Sorex minutus) trapped in Czech Republic and Germany. Complete nucleocapsid protein- and gly- coprotein precursor-coding S- and M-segment sequences were then determined for the newly recognized hantavirus strains, CZ/Beskydy/412/2010/Sm, CZ/Drahany/420/2010/Sm, and DE/Dürrbach/1912/2009/ Sm. Phylogenetic analyses showed that they represent strains of Asikkala virus (ASIV), a novel hantavirus also found in pygmy shrews from Finland. Our study reveals a broad geographic distribution of ASIV across Europe and indicates pygmy shrew as the primary reservoir host. Future studies will have to deter- mine the pathogenic relevance of ASIV. Ó 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Hantaviruses (family Bunyaviridae, genus Hantavirus) have been for decades considered to be typical rodent-borne zoonotic viruses. Within the last five years knowledge on hantavirus host range has been significantly revised. Firstly, several novel hantaviruses have been discovered in shrews (order Soricomorpha, family Soricidae) (Klempa et al., 2007; Arai et al., 2007; Song et al., 2007a,b). Later moles (order Soricomorpha, family Talpidae) were also identified as reservoirs of novel hantaviruses (Arai et al., 2008; Kang et al., 2009a,b). Recent detection of Magboi virus in hairy slit-faced bat (Nycteris hispida)(Weiss et al., 2012) and Mouyassué virus in bana- na pipistrelle bat (Neoromicia nanus)(Sumibcay et al., 2012) indi- cated that bats (order Chiroptera), known to harbor a broad variety of emerging pathogens (Drexler et al., 2012), might serve as reservoir hosts of hantaviruses as well. While the pathogenic potential of the novel shrew-, mole- and bat-borne hantaviruses is currently unknown, rodent-borne hanta- viruses are important human pathogens spread via inhalation of aerosolized excrement and cause two life-threatening diseases; hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Asia and Europe, and hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas (Krüger et al., 2011). The novel shrew- and mole-borne hantaviruses have the typical hantavirus genome organisation. The single stranded RNA genome of negative polarity consists of a small (S)-segment coding for a nucleocapsid (N) protein, medium (M)-segment coding for a glycoprotein precursor (GPC), and large (L)-segment coding for a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (Kang et al., 2009). Recently, an additional putative open reading frame (ORF) was reported in the positive strand of the Seewis virus (SWSV) S-segment (Schlegel et al., 2012a). 1567-1348/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2013.04.008 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Institute of Virology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 9, 84505 Bratislava, Slovakia. Tel.: +421 2 59302465; fax: +421 2 54774284. E-mail address: boris.klempa@savba.sk (B. Klempa). Infection, Genetics and Evolution xxx (2013) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Infection, Genetics and Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/meegid Please cite this article in press as: Radosa, L., et al. Detection of shrew-borne hantavirus in Eurasian pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus) in Central Europe. Infect. Genet. Evol. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2013.04.008