Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, United States
Valerie Ohlendorf
Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany
Anne Kopp
Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany
Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany
Christian Drosten
Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany
Stuart T Nichol
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, United States
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, United States
Sandra Junglen
Institute of Virology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Free University Berlin, Humboldt-University Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Berlin, Germany
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is the most widely distributed tick-borne viral infection in the world. Strikingly, reported mortality rates for CCHF are extremely variable, ranging from 5% to 80% (Whitehouse, 2004). CCHF virus (CCHFV, Nairoviridae) exhibits extensive genomic sequence diversity across strains (Deyde et al., 2006; Sherifi et al., 2014). It is currently unknown if genomic diversity is a factor contributing to variation in its pathogenicity. We obtained complete genome sequences of CCHFV directly from the tick reservoir. These new strains belong to a solitary lineage named Europe 2 that is circumstantially reputed to be less pathogenic than the epidemic strains from Europe 1 lineage. We identified a single tick-specific amino acid variant in the viral glycoprotein region that dramatically reduces its fusion activity in human cells, providing evidence that a glycoprotein precursor variant, present in ticks, has severely impaired function in human cells.
