title: Hepatitis E virus genotype 3 in wild rats, United States.
abstract: 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.
authors: Department of Zoology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74075, USA. lack@okstate.edu
authors: Justin B
authors: JB
authors: Lack
authors: Kylie
authors: K
authors: Volk
authors: Ronald A
authors: RA
authors: Van Den Bussche
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000821:virology*; D005838:Genotype; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D008099:Liver / Q000821:virology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D051381:Rats / Q000821:virology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000821:virology
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral