Hepatitis E Virus Genotype 3 in Wild Rats, United States

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Lack, Justin B. ; Volk, Kylie ; Van Den Bussche, Ronald A.
• Description:
  The role of rodents in the epidemiology of zoonotic hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection has been a subject of considerable debate. Seroprevalence studies suggest widespread HEV infection in commensal Rattus spp. rats, but experimental transmission has been largely unsuccessful and recovery of zoonotic genotype 3 HEV RNA from wild Rattus spp. rats has never been confirmed. We surveyed R. rattus and R. norvegicus rats from across the United States and several international populations by using a hemi-nested reverse transcription PCR approach. We isolated HEV RNA in liver tissues from 35 of 446 rats examined. All but 1 of these isolates was relegated to the zoonotic HEV genotype 3, and the remaining sequence represented the recently discovered rat genotype from the United States and Germany. HEV-positive rats were detected in urban and remote localities. Genetic analyses suggest all HEV genotype 3 isolates obtained from wild Rattus spp. rats were closely related.
• Subjects:
  Animals Animals, Wild Genotype Hepatitis E Hepatitis E Virus Liver Phylogeny Rats Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Rna, Viral Sequence Analysis, DNA Zoonoses

  More +
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 18(8):1268-1273.
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Volume:
  18
• Issue:
  8
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:70eae1dc2f83abde4c4e14d7840567ad95b149c01cc764c98c20c5a2893cc26e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/18728/cdc_18728_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 327.93 KB ]