Variability of G1 gene of hantaviruses occurring in the Hubei Province, P.R. China from 1985 to 2000.

We studied variability of G1 gene of hantaviruses occurring in the Hubei province, P.R. China. Serum samples were collected from 229 patients with hemorrhagic fever with renal syndromes (HFRS) during 1985--1989 and 1996--2000 and were tested by RT-PCR for the presence of Hantaan and Seoul viruses (HTNVs, SEOVs) and by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis for the respective pattern. Out of 229 sera 166 (72.5%) were hantavirus-positive by RT-PCR, including 124 from 1985--1989 and 42 from 1996--2000, with HTNVs in majority (80.1%) and SEOVs in minority (19.9%). By RFLP analysis, four types of RFLP pattern were recognized. In the 133 HTNV isolates the A pattern was most predominant (62.5%), while the remaining patterns B, C, and D were present in minority. This kind of the RFLP pattern distribution was observed regardless the year of virus isolation. In contrast, only one type of RFLP pattern was obtained from 33 SEOVs, but this was different from that of R22 virus. Our results indicate that temporal factor, represented by years 1985--2000 seems to be too short to affect markedly the genetic makeup of the hantaviruses investigated.