Open AccessDiagnostic system for the detection of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus RNA from suspected infected animals
Author(s) -
Eun-Sil Park,
Osamu Fujita,
Masanobu Kimura,
Akitoyo Hotta,
Koichi Imaoka,
Masayuki Shimojima,
Masayuki Saijo,
Ken Maeda,
Shigeru Morikawa
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0238671
Subject(s) - severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome , virology , cats , viral load , titer , plaque reduction neutralization test , primer (cosmetics) , medicine , virus , polymerase chain reaction , reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction , real time polymerase chain reaction , viral hemorrhagic fever , biology , messenger rna , gene , chemistry , biochemistry , organic chemistry , ebola virus
Background Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) causes severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and cats. Clinical symptoms of SFTS-infected cats resemble those of SFTS patients, whereas SFTS-contracted cats have high levels of viral RNA loads in the serum and body fluids. Due to the risk of direct infection from SFTS-infected cats to human, it is important to diagnose SFTS-suspected animals. In this study, a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was newly developed to diagnose SFTS-suspected animals without non-specific reactions. Methodology/principle findings Four primer sets were newly designed from consensus sequences constructed from 108 strains of SFTSV. A RT-PCR with these four primer sets successfully and specifically detected four clades of SFTSV. Their limits of detection are 1–10 copies/reaction. Using this RT-PCR, 5 cat cases among 56 SFTS-suspected animal cases were diagnosed as SFTS. From these cats, IgM or IgG against SFTSV were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), but not neutralizing antibodies by plaque reduction neutralization titer (PRNT) test. This phenomenon is similar to those of fatal SFTS patients. Conclusion/significance This newly developed RT-PCR could detect SFTSV RNA of several clades and from SFTS-suspected animals. In addition to ELISA and PRNT test, the useful laboratory diagnosis systems of SFTS-suspected animals has been made in this study.