Pathogens (Sep 2022)

A Portable Diagnostic Assay, Genetic Diversity, and Isolation of Seoul Virus from <i>Rattus norvegicus</i> Collected in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea

  • Kyungmin Park,
  • Seung-Ho Lee,
  • Jongwoo Kim,
  • Jingyeong Lee,
  • Geum-Young Lee,
  • Seungchan Cho,
  • Juyoung Noh,
  • Jeewan Choi,
  • Juwon Park,
  • Dong-Hyun Song,
  • Se Hun Gu,
  • Hyeongseok Yun,
  • Jung-Eun Kim,
  • Daesang Lee,
  • Il-Ung Hwang,
  • Won-Keun Kim,
  • Jin-Won Song

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11091047
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 9
p. 1047

Abstract

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Seoul virus (SEOV), an etiological agent for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, poses a significant public health threat worldwide. This study evaluated the feasibility of a mobile Biomeme platform for facilitating rapid decision making of SEOV infection. A total of 27 Rattus norvegicus were collected from Seoul Metropolitan City and Gangwon Province in Republic of Korea (ROK), during 2016–2020. The serological and molecular prevalence of SEOV was 5/27 (18.5%) and 2/27 (7.4%), respectively. SEOV RNA was detected in multiple tissues of rodents using the Biomeme device, with differences in Ct values ranging from 0.6 to 2.1 cycles compared to a laboratory benchtop system. Using amplicon-based next-generation sequencing, whole-genome sequences of SEOV were acquired from lung tissues of Rn18-1 and Rn19-5 collected in Gangwon Province. Phylogenetic analysis showed a phylogeographical diversity of rat-borne orthohantavirus collected in Gangwon Province. We report a novel isolate of SEOV Rn19-5 from Gangwon Province. Our findings demonstrated that the Biomeme system can be applied for the molecular diagnosis of SEOV comparably to the laboratory-based platform. Whole-genome sequencing of SEOV revealed the phylogeographical diversity of orthohantavirus in the ROK. This study provides important insights into the field-deployable diagnostic assays and genetic diversity of orthohantaviruses for the rapid response to hantaviral outbreaks in the ROK.

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