Abstract
Hepatitis is a major global health concern. However, the etiology of 10–20% hepatitis cases remains unclear. Some hepatitis-associated viruses, like the hepatitis E virus, are zoonotic pathogens. Rats, shrews, and bats are reservoirs for many zoonotic pathogens. Therefore, understanding the virome in the liver of these animals is important for the investigation of the etiologies of hepatitis and monitoring the emerging zoonotic viruses. In this study, viral metagenomics and PCR methods were used to investigate viral communities in rats, mice, house shrews, and bats livers. Viral metagenomic analysis showed a diverse set of sequences in liver samples, comprising: sequences related to herpesviruses, orthomyxoviruses, anelloviruses, hepeviruses, hepadnaviruses, flaviviruses, parvoviruses, and picornaviruses. Using PCR methods, we first detected hepatovirus sequences in Hipposideros larvatus (3.85%). We also reported the first detection of Zika virus-related sequences in rats and house shrews. Sequences related to influenza A virus and herpesviruses were detected in liver. Higher detection rates of pegivirus sequences were found in liver tissue and serum samples from rats (7.85% and 15.79%, respectively) than from house shrews. Torque teno virus sequences had higher detection rates in the serum samples of rats and house shrews (52.72% and 5.26%, respectively) than in the liver. Near-full length genomes of pegivirus and torque teno virus were amplified. This study is the first to compare the viral communities in the liver of bats, rats, mice, and house shrews. Its findings expand our understanding of the virome in the liver of these animals and provide an insight into hepatitis-related viruses.
Highlights
Viral hepatitis is a major global health concern
We found a high similarity in viral composition between urban rats and house shrews
We only found sequences related to hepatovirus (0.99%), influenza A virus (2.97%), and herpesvirus (20.79%); in urban rats and house shrews, we amplified the sequences related to a larger number of viruses, including adenovirus, ZIKV, influenza A virus, herpesviruses, pegivirus and TTV (Table 2)
Summary
Viral hepatitis is a major global health concern. In 2015, 1.34 million persons died from the consequences of viral hepatitis. The zoonotic potential of HAV is still unclear (Sander et al, 2018), while some hepatitis cases reported to date being linked to rat HEV (Sridhar et al, 2018; Andonov et al, 2019). Human liver diseases related to infection by the influenza A virus has been documented. A previous study showed that infection with the influenza A virus can cause hepatitis in an animal model (Morocco et al, 2014; Nonaka et al, 2019; Zhang et al, 2019). Like pegivirus (Mrzljak and Tabain, 2019), TTV (Paraná and Lyra, 2000), KIs-V (Lole et al, 2017), and SEN-V (Sehgal, 2003), are considered to be the potential causes of hepatitis. The etiology of the remaining 10–20% hepatitis cases remains unclear
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