European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Hantavirus is a zoonotic virus manifesting two vital clinical symptoms viz., hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and cardiopulmonary syndrome. With a sudden onset of fatigue, fever, and body aches, in extreme cases can lead to shortness of breath and had resulted in major outbreaks in past decades. Pro- inflammatory cytokine responses and reticulo endothelial systems take the lead role in establishing the immuno-pathogenesis of the hantavirus disease. The virus genome consists of these segments of negative stranded RNA, where the large (L) segment encodes the viral RNA polymerase, the medium (M) segment the glycoprotein precursor which is co-translationally cleaved into the envelope glycoproteins Gn and Gc, and the small (S) segment the nucleocapsid protein (N). Hantavirus are divided into Old world and New world hantavirus based on the geographic regions in which they occur. They are strictly associated with their reservoirs hosts which are rodents, but from recent researches reported, also insectivores. Both innate and cellular immune responses function effectively in evading the viral replication, however the mutations and the typical variations in the virus finally establishes a disease in humans. This review thus provides an overview on hanta virus and its associated immune-pathogenesis.