Guanarito virus.. Have you heard of?

[MATTHEW FRANCIS WETTLAUFER]

Alfredo Penzo (apenzo at ens-lyon.fr) wrote:

:        I'm looking for information on arenavirusus, specially guanarito (Venezuelan hemorragic fever), their morphology, life cycle, molecular biology and genetic structure.........I  would greatful on any info..........

: 						Greetings!

: 						A. P.
:     

Guanarito is an arenavirus which derives its name from sandlike structures
found in the virion's membrane (due to nonfunctioning ribosomes accidently
caught by the virus during budding from the host cell).  The genome
consists of two ambisense linear segments of ssRNA, one Long strand (L)
and one Short strand (S).  The mode of replication follows that the minus
part of the S segment codes for the N protein (nucleoprotein) and is the
first to be transcribed, then translated into its protein; then the minus
part of the L segment which codes for the L protein (transcriptase) is
transcribed and translated into its protein.  Then the process is
"flip-flopped": the plus part of the S segment is coded for the G
(glycoprotein) and is transcribed and translated; then the plus part of
the L segment (which codes for the Z or zinc-bind protein) is transcribed
and translated.  The glycoprotein is proteolytically cleaved into G1 and
G2; the virus leaves the cell via budding. 

Guanarito is the most recently found virus in S. America (though that may
no longer be true due to the outbreak in Nicaragua); it belongs to the New
World serogroup of Arenaviridae (as opposed to the Old World serogroup
consisting of LCM or lymphocytic-choriomeningitis).  The first cases were
observed in 1989--over a hundred cases reported between 1990 and 1991.  It
is spread by a rodent called a cotton rat.  Usually virus is shed through
rodent urine and comes into contact with grain in storage facilities. 
Virus can be contracted through cuts and abrasions, and possibly by
aerosol as well.