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. 2004 Jan;42(1):126-32.
doi: 10.1128/JCM.42.1.126-132.2004.

Human metapneumovirus infection in Japanese children

Takashi Ebihara  1 , Rika Endo, Hideaki Kikuta, Nobuhisa Ishiguro, Hiroaki Ishiko, Michimaru Hara, Yutaka Takahashi, Kunihiko Kobayashi
Affiliations

Human metapneumovirus infection in Japanese children

Takashi Ebihara et al. J Clin Microbiol. 2004 Jan.

Abstract

Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) has been recently discovered as an etiological agent of acute respiratory infections. Our purpose was to asses the virological and clinical features of children with respiratory infections caused by hMPV. We examined 658 nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained from 637 children with respiratory infections for hMPV by using reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR). A total of 268 samples from 637 children were inoculated onto tertiary monkey kidney cells. A total of 36 serum samples (26 in the acute phase and 10 in the convalescent phase) from the 26 hMPV-positive children were tested for immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM antibodies to hMPV by using an indirect immunofluorescence assay. We detected hMPV in 57 (8.9%) of the 637 samples by using RT-PCR and isolated 7 (2.6%) hMPV strains of the 268 samples in cell cultures. A total of 12 (46.2%) of 26 hMPV-positive children were suspected to have primary infection with hMPV as determined by an indirect immunofluorescence assay. The infected children were diagnosed as having wheezy bronchitis (36.8%), upper respiratory tract infection (26.3%), bronchitis (22.8%), and pneumonia (14.0%). We showed that two hMPV groups were circulating in different regions during the same period and that reinfection with hMPV frequently occurs in childhood. The RT-PCR test is the most sensitive test for detection of hMPV, and a serological test may be useful to differentiate between primary infection and reinfection with hMPV.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Analysis for hMPV by RT-PCR. Symbols: •, positive for hMPV; ○, negative for hMPV. JPS, isolate from Sapporo. The numbers in parentheses are the numbers of days from onset to sampling.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Phylogenetic analysis of hMPV fusion nucleotide sequences. A tree was constructed by the neighbor-joining method. The length of the horizontal line represents number of substitutions/site. Bootstrap values of >70% are shown. Avian pneumovirus subgroup C (GenBank accession no. AF187152 [APV]) was the outgroup and used to root this tree. 94-1, 99-1, 00-1, and 93-1, isolates from The Netherlands (18); JPS, isolate from Sapporo; JPH, isolate from Hiroshima; JPY, isolate from Yamaguchi. The GenBank accession numbers are AY312177 to AY312233.
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