Pathogenesis and virulence of Heartland virus

ABSTRACT

Heartland virus (HRTV), an emerging tick-borne pathogenic bunyavirus, has been a concern since 2012, with an increasing incidence, expanding geographical distribution, and high pathogenicity in the United States. Infection from HRTV results in fever, thrombocytopenia, and leucopenia in humans, and in some cases, symptoms can progress to severe outcomes, including haemorrhagic disease, multi-organ failure, and even death. Currently, no vaccines or antiviral drugs are available for treatment of the HRTV disease. Moreover, little is known about HRTV-host interactions, viral replication mechanisms, pathogenesis and virulence, further hampering the development of vaccines and antiviral interventions. Here, we aimed to provide a brief review of HRTV epidemiology, molecular biology, pathogenesis and virulence on the basis of published article data to better understand this virus and provide clues for further study.

KEYWORDS:

• Heartland virus (HRTV)
• bandavirus
• epidemiology
• molecular biology
• pathogenesis
• virulence

Acknowledgements

The work in our lab was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFC2303300, to YJN and HLW), Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2020333, to YJN), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32170171, to YJN), the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Virology of China (2022IOV004, to KF), and the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China (202102020057, to SL). We thank the National Virus Resource Center (Wuhan Institute of Virology) for virus resources and the Core Facility and Technical Support of Wuhan Institute of Virology for technical assistance in our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualization: YJN. Resources: YJN, HLW, and FD. Funding acquisition: YJN, HLW, KF, and SL. Writing-original draft: KF, YJN, HYZ, BBU, and SL. Writing-review and editing: YJN. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [2022YFC2303300]; Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [2020333]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [32170171]; the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China [202102020057]; Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Virology of China [2022IOV004].