Hantavirus Immunology of Rodent Reservoirs: Current Status and Future Directions

Abstract

Hantaviruses are hosted by rodents, insectivores and bats. Several rodent-borne hantaviruses cause two diseases that share many features in humans, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Eurasia or hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas. It is thought that the immune response plays a significant contributory role in these diseases. However, in reservoir hosts that have been closely examined, little or no pathology occurs and infection is persistent despite evidence of adaptive immune responses. Because most hantavirus reservoirs are not model organisms, it is difficult to conduct meaningful experiments that might shed light on how the viruses evade sterilizing immune responses and why immunopathology does not occur. Despite these limitations, recent advances in instrumentation and bioinformatics will have a dramatic impact on understanding reservoir host responses to hantaviruses by employing a systems biology approach to identify important pathways that mediate virus/reservoir relationships.

Preliminary insights into the genetics of bank vole tolerance to Puumala hantavirus in Sweden

“…In M. glareolus , PUUV infections are chronic (Hardestam et al, ; Voutilainen et al., ) and mainly asymptomatic (Bernshtein et al, ), although small negative effects on the fitness of the host have been reported (Kallio et al, ; Kallio, Helle, Koskela, Mappes, & Vapalahti, ; Tersago, Crespin, Verhagen, & Leirs, ). The tolerance of rodents to hantavirus infections has mostly been examined by comparing the immune response between reservoir and non reservoir hosts (see for reviews Easterbrook & Klein, , Schountz & Prescott, ). Several recent studies have investigated intraspecific variations in immune response of M. glareolus to PUUV infections, using samples from geographic regions with high versus low circulation of PUUV in bank voles.…”

Role of metabolism during viral infections, and crosstalk with the innate immune system

“…Consequently with cell homeostasis, the TCA cycle cannot be completely shut down, and because of that, glutamine is used to replenish the TCA intermediates in an anaplerotic way (29). As an example of the shortage of development in this field in viruses responsible for infectious diseases, by the end of 2015 there were no metabolomics studies on the influence of HTV either on the human or on the reservoir (30).…”

Immunology in wild nonmodel rodents: an ecological context for studies of health and disease

“…A promising and more economical strategy will be to explore further the potential of established and emerging nucleic acids measurement . This approach can focus on panels of candidate genes, selected on the basis of the existing knowledge base for mouse immunological pathways.…”