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Mucin-like protein of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus is a key virulence factor and a potent target for developing novel attenuated vaccine

Cell Research volume 35, pages 524–527 (2025)Cite this article

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Dear Editor,

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is the most widespread tick-borne virus, causing severe fever, leukopenia, cytokine storm, and hemorrhage in humans, with up to 40% case fatality.1 Owing to the lack of approved vaccines and antivirals, the WHO has listed Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) as a priority disease. The requirement for a high biosafety level facility (BSL-4/3) for handling this deadly virus restricts fundamental research; in addition, the pathogenesis and key pathogenic factors of CCHFV remain largely unknown, further impeding research and product development against CCHF.

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Fig. 1: CCHFVΔMLD replicated efficiently in vitro but lost its in vivo pathogenicity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB0490000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U22A20336), the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFC2303300; 2023YFC2305900), the Hubei Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (2021CFA050), the Wuhan Natural Science Foundation (202404071010067). We thank the BSL-3 laboratory, Animal Center, and Drs. Yuchen Xia, Zaichao Xu, Yanyi Wang, Zhisheng Xu, Chao Shan, Xiulian Sun, Ding Gao and Juan Min for their valuable suggestions and technical assistance.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Liushuai Li, Yajie Liu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Virology and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Liushuai Li, Yajie Liu, Juhong Rao, Hengrui Hu, Jia Liu, Xi Wang, Jiang Li, Zhihong Hu & Manli Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Liushuai Li, Yajie Liu & Juhong Rao

Authors
  1. Liushuai Li
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  2. Yajie Liu
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  3. Juhong Rao
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  7. Jiang Li
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  9. Manli Wang
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Contributions

L.L., Y.L. performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. H.H., J.R., X.W., and J. Liu contributed to the data curation and analysis. J. Li contributed to the resources; M.W. and Z.H. contributed to the conceptualization, funding acquisition and supervision.

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Correspondence to Manli Wang.

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Li, L., Liu, Y., Rao, J. et al. Mucin-like protein of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus is a key virulence factor and a potent target for developing novel attenuated vaccine. Cell Res 35, 524–527 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-025-01130-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-025-01130-7

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