The RNA of each Yar virus was extracted from 200 ml of 10% infected mouse brain suspension or infected PS cell supernatant using Total RNA Isolation System (PROMEGA). The RT-PCR was used to amplify the 59-C-prM-E gene region of Yar viruses as described [28, 41] . PCR products were directly sequenced using a Taq BigDye Terminator v3.1 Cycle Sequencing Kit (Applied Biosystems). Sequences of the C-prM-E region of Yar-viruses were deposited in GenBank with accession numbers EU444077, EU444078, EU444079 and EU444080 (Table 1 ).