@article{f2957db5efc148cd916cc8612d386e43,
title = "Tofla virus: A newly identified Nairovirus of the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever group isolated from ticks in Japan",
abstract = "Ixodid ticks transmit several important viral pathogens. We isolated a new virus (Tofla virus: TFLV) from Heamaphysalis flava and Heamaphysalis formsensis in Japan. The full-genome sequences revealed that TFLV belonged to the genus Nairovirus, family Bunyaviridae. Phylogenetic analyses and neutralization tests suggested that TFLV is closely related to the Hazara virus and that it is classified into the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever group. TFLV caused lethal infection in IFNAR KO mice. The TFLV-infected mice exhibited a gastrointestinal disorder, and positron emission tomography-computed tomography images showed a significant uptake of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose in the intestinal tract. TFLV was able to infect and propagate in cultured cells of African green monkey-derived Vero E6 cells and human-derived SK-N-SH, T98-G and HEK-293 cells. Although TFLV infections in humans and animals are currently unknown, our findings may provide clues to understand the potential infectivity and to develop of pre-emptive countermeasures against this new tick-borne Nairovirus.",
author = "Satoshi Shimada and Kotaro Aoki and Takeshi Nabeshima and Yu Fuxun and Yohei Kurosaki and Kazuya Shiogama and Takanori Onouchi and Miako Sakaguchi and Takeshi Fuchigami and Hokuto Ono and Kodai Nishi and Guillermo Posadas-Herrera and Leo Uchida and Yuki Takamatsu and Jiro Yasuda and Yutaka Tsutsumi and Hiromi Fujita and Kouichi Morita and Daisuke Hayasaka",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Roger Hewson (Public Health England) for providing the HAZV, Ken Maeda (Joint Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Yamaguchi University) for providing the SFTSV YG-1, Koichi Izumikawa (Department of Infectious Diseases, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Course of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Nagasaki University) for providing the antiserum against SFTS, Seigo Yamamoto (Miyazaki University) and Fumihiko Mahara (Mahara Hospital, Tokushima) for providing the tick collection, and Mya Myat Ngwe Tun (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University) for technical support for the experiments. This work was supported financially by KAKENHI [Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (25304045) and Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research (25660229, 15K15126)] from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, a Health and Labor Sciences Research Grant on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Health and Labor Sciences Research Grants (Grants in aid H25-Shinko-Ippan-007, H25-Shinko-shitei-009), the Cooperative Research Grant of NEKKEN 2015, AMED, J-GRID and the Joint Usage/ Research Center on Tropical Disease, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University (2015-Ippan-12).",
year = "2016",
month = feb,
day = "11",
doi = "10.1038/srep20213",
language = "English",
volume = "6",
journal = "Scientific reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
}