Nucleotide sequence and phylogenetic analysis of the medium (M) genomic RNA segments of three hantaviruses isolated in China

The medium (M) genome segment of hantaviruses (family Bunyaviridae) encodes the two virion glycoproteins, G1 and G2, as a precursor protein in the complementary sense RNA. We determined the nucleotide sequences of the M genome segments of three Chinese hantavirus isolates, a Hantaan-type (HTN) virus designated A9 and two Seoul-type (SEO) viruses designated L99 and HB55, and compared them to those of other HTN or SEO viruses isolated in Eastern Asia. The M segment of A9 is 3616 nucleotides in length and shows 99.5% identity at the nucleotide level and 99.1% identity at the amino acid level to that of the Chinese HTN isolate HV114. The M segments of L99 and HB55 are 3652 nucleotides in length, one nucleotide longer than the M segments of other sequenced SEO isolates such as SEO 80-39, SR-11, and Biken-1. The Chinese SEO isolates showed 95% nucleotide sequence identity and 99% amino acid sequence identity to SEO 80-39. We also sequenced a 736 nucleotides region of the M genome segment of another Chinese SEO isolate, R22, which revealed errors in the published data. Phylogenetic analysis of the available sequences indicated that both the Chinese HTN- and SEO-type viruses form lineages distinct from those of the isolates from other parts of Eastern Asia.