The medium from 20 mL of novel bunyavirus-infected Vero E6 cells was centrifuged at 1,000 x g for 10 minutes and then at 4,000 x g for 10 minutes, after which the supernatant was collected. PEG8000 was added to the supernatant at a final concentration of 10% (w/v) followed by centrifugation at 20,000 x g for 2 hours. The pellet was resuspended in 2 mL 16phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) for RNA extraction. Random RT-PCR was performed, and the products (500-1500 bps) were collected and ligated into the pGEM-T vector (Promega, A3600) by incubating overnight at 16uC. Escherichia coli JM109 were transformed with the ligation mixture and cultured on LB agar containing X-gal. White clones were sequenced using an ABI 3730 DNA Sequencer. Contaminating human and extraneous sequences were eliminated using Cross-Match, and the complete sequence was assembled using Phred-Phrap-Consed [32] . Bridge RT-PCR was employed for gap-closure.