title: Molecular analysis of swine hepatitis E virus from north India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Hepatitis E is the main cause of enterically transmitted non-A, non-B hepatitis in developing countries. In the developed countries such as the USA, Japan and Taiwan, the viruses infecting humans and swine share the same genotype with a high sequence similarity. Genotype 1 circulates in humans whereas genotype 4 in pigs in India. The present study was designed to investigate the presence of anti-HEV antibodies and HEV-RNA in swine population from north India, to investigate the genotype prevalent in it, and to compare it with other swine and human HEV strains from India.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 67 serum samples were collected from pigs of age period (1-6 months) from Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Izatnagar, Bareily and subjected to anti-HEV IgG and HEV RNA detection. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using the neighbor-joining method and evaluated using the interior branch test method with MEGA 4 software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Anti-HEV IgG and HEV RNA was found in 38.8 and 4.5 per cent of swine samples studied respectively. The above samples were observed to be of genotype 4e. The three new sequences had nucleotide similarity with other swine sequences in genotype 4 ranging from 80-98 per cent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The three sequences observed in the present study showed nucleotide similarity with other swine sequences from southern and western India. The present study suggests that genotype 4 'e' is prevalent in the north India.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Nargis
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Begum
authors.forename: Sunil K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Polipalli
authors.forename: Syed A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Husain
authors.forename: Premashis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005838:Genotype; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000662:veterinary*; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013552:Swine; D013553:Swine Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000821:virology*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D012367:RNA, Viral