Reovirus, isolated from SARS patients

Qing Duan; Hong Zhu; Yi Yang; Weihua Li; Yusen Zhou; Jun He; Kun He; Haojie Zhang; Tao Zhou; Lihua Song; Yonghua Gan; Hua Tan; Baofeng Jin; Huiyan Li; Tingting Zuo; Dehui Chen; Xuemin Zhang

doi:10.1007/BF03184165

Reovirus, isolated from SARS patients

Chin Sci Bull. 2003;48(13):1293-1296. doi: 10.1007/BF03184165.

Authors

Qing Duan¹, Hong Zhu¹, Yi Yang², Weihua Li², Yusen Zhou¹, Jun He¹, Kun He², Haojie Zhang¹, Tao Zhou², Lihua Song¹, Yonghua Gan¹, Hua Tan¹, Baofeng Jin², Huiyan Li², Tingting Zuo¹, Dehui Chen², Xuemin Zhang²

Affiliations

¹ 1Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 100071 Beijing, China.
² 2National Center of Biomedical Analysis, 100850 Beijing, China.

Abstract

Beijing has been severely affected by SARS, and SARS-associated coronavirus has been confirmed as its cause. However, clinical and experimental evidence implicates the possibility of co-infection. In this report, reovirus was isolated from throat swabs of SARS patients, including the first case in Beijing and her mother. Identification with the electron microscopy revealed the characteristic features of reovirus. 24 of 38 samples from other SARS cases were found to have serologic responses to the reovirus. Primers designed for reovirus have amplified several fragments of DNA, one of which was sequenced (S2 gene fragment), which indicates it as a unique reovirus (orthoreovirus). Preliminary animal experiment showed that inoculation of the reovirus in mice caused death with atypical pneumonia. Nevertheless, the association of reovirus with SARS outbreak requires to be further investigated.

Keywords: SARS; coronavirus; electron microscopy; reovirus.