title: Correlation between positivity for immunoglobulin A antibodies and viraemia of swine hepatitis E virus observed among farm pigs in Japan.
abstract: To evaluate the usefulness of detection of antibodies to hepatitis E virus (HEV) to screen for viraemic pigs, serum samples obtained from 1425 1-6-month-old pigs in Japan were tested for swine HEV RNA and IgG, IgM and IgA classes of anti-HEV antibody. Fifty-five (5 %) of the 1071 2-5-month-old pigs were positive for swine HEV RNA, but none of 218 1-month-old pigs or 136 6-month-old pigs had detectable HEV RNA. The prevalence of anti-HEV IgG among the viraemic pigs (67 %, 37/55) was similar to that among the non-viraemic pigs (55 %, 757/1370) and the prevalence of anti-HEV IgM among the viraemic pigs and non-viraemic pigs was 7 and 3 %, respectively. However, anti-HEV IgA was detected significantly more frequently among viraemic pigs than among non-viraemic pigs (55 vs 10 %, P<0.0001). These results suggest that anti-HEV IgA is more useful than anti-HEV IgM to screen for viraemic pigs.
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Masaharu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Tsutomu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishizawa
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshinori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Bira
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tsatsralt-Od
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai 980-8574, Japan.|Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi-Ken 329-0498, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okamoto
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies / Q000097:blood*; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000662:veterinary*; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000097:blood*; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D034421:Sus scrofa; D013553:Swine Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014766:Viremia / Q000662:veterinary*; D014773:Virology / Q000379:methods*; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology
chemical_list: D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies; D007136:Immunoglobulins; D012367:RNA, Viral