Abstract
BackgroundUrban rodents and house shrews are closely correlated in terms of location with humans and can transmit many pathogens to them. Hepatitis E has been confirmed to be a zoonotic disease. However, the zoonotic potential of rat HEV is still unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and genomic characteristics of hepatitis E virus (HEV) in rodents and house shrews.ResultsWe collected a total of 788 animals from four provinces in China. From the 614 collected murine rodents, 20.19% of the liver tissue samples and 45.76% of the fecal samples were positive for HEV. From the 174 house shrews (Suncus murinus), 5.17% fecal samples and 0.57% liver tissue samples were positive for HEV. All of the HEV sequences obtained in this study belonged to Orthohepevirus C1. However, we observed a lower percentage of identity in the ORF3 region upon comparing the amino acid sequences between Rattus norvegicus and Rattus losea. HEV derived from house shrews shared a high percentage of identity with rat HEV. Notably, the first near full-length of the HEV genome from Rattus losea is described in our study, and we also report the first near full-length rat HEV genomes in Rattus norvegicus from China.ConclusionHEV is prevalent among the three common species of murine rodents (Rattus. norvegicus, Rattus. tanezumi, and Rattus. losea) in China. HEV sequences detected from house shrews were similar to rat HEV sequences. The high identity of HEV from murine rodents and house shrews suggested that HEV can spread among different animal species.
Highlights
Urban rodents and house shrews are closely correlated in terms of location with humans and can transmit many pathogens to them
Liver and fecal specimens were collected from 456 R. norvegicus, 64 Rattus tanezumi (R. tanezumi), 93 Rattus losea (R. losea), 1 Bandicota indica (B. indica), and 174 Suncus murinus (S. murinus) (Fig. 1 and Table 1)
According to nested broad-spectrum RT-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and nested PCR, 20.19% (124/614) of the liver tissue samples and 45.76% (281/614) of the fecal samples from murine rodents were positive for hepatitis E virus (HEV)
Summary
Urban rodents and house shrews are closely correlated in terms of location with humans and can transmit many pathogens to them. The zoonotic potential of rat HEV is still unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and genomic characteristics of hepatitis E virus (HEV) in rodents and house shrews. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the causative agent of hepatitis E in humans worldwide. HEV can cause hepatitis outbreaks and sporadic hepatitis, which is usually a self-limiting disease [2]. In immunosuppressed patients, HEV infection can cause rapidly progressive cirrhosis [3]. The mortality rates of HEV infection range from 0.2–1%; the mortality rate is higher during pregnancy, HEV is a positive-sense, single-stranded, non-enveloped RNA virus with a size of 27–34 nm. ORF4 has been identified in rat and ferret HEV strains; its function is still unknown [7,8,9]
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