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Detection of Hantaviral Antibodies among Patients with Hepatitis of Unknown Etiology in Japan
Author(s) -
Kariwa Hiroaki,
Yoshimatsu Kumiko,
Araki Koichi,
Chayama Kazuaki,
Kumada Hiromitsu,
Ogino Michiko,
Ebihara Hideki,
Murphy Michael E.,
Mizutani Tetsuya,
Takashima Ikuo,
Arikawa Jiro
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
microbiology and immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1348-0421
pISSN - 0385-5600
DOI - 10.1111/j.1348-0421.2000.tb02506.x
Subject(s) - antibody , serology , virology , hantaan virus , hantavirus , hepatitis , titer , immunology , virus , hepatitis a , liver disease , hepatitis c virus , etiology , medicine , biology
Hantaviral antibodies were detected in the sera from patients with hepatic disease of unknown etiology in Japan by several different serological diagnostic methods. A total of 105 sera from diseased patients which were negative to AG hepatitis virus infections in the Tokyo area were tested. Among them, 3 out of 73 sera from patients with chronic hepatic disease were positive to hantaviral antibody by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), indirect immunofluorescent antibody assay (IFA) and Western blot analysis (WB). Neutralizing antibody titers of the 3 sera to Seoul virus (SEO) were 4 to 8 times higher than those to Hantaan virus (HTN). However, all of the 32 sera from patients with acute hepatitis were negative for hantaviral antibody. Among the 60 patients with chronic hepatitis in Hokkaido which were serologically negative to B and C hepatitis virus infection, one was positive for hantaviral antibody by ELISA and WB. In contrast, the sera from healthy adults in Japan, 550 from the Honshu and Kyushu regions, and 1,000 from the Hokkaido region, were negative for hantavirus antibody. These results show that hantaviral antibodies are more frequently detected in patients with hepatic disease than in healthy adults. However, the observation that no positive sera were detected from patients with acute hepatitis implies that hantavirus might not be directly related to hepatitis.