title: High frequency of hepatitis E virus infection in swine from South Brazil and close similarity to human HEV isolates.
abstract: Hepatitis E virus is responsible for acute and chronic liver infections worldwide. Swine hepatitis E virus has been isolated in Brazil, and a probable zoonotic transmission has been described, although data are still scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of hepatitis E virus infection in pigs from a small-scale farm in the rural area of Paraná State, South Brazil. Fecal samples were collected from 170 pigs and screened for hepatitis E virus RNA using a duplex real-time RT-PCR targeting a highly conserved 70nt long sequence within overlapping parts of ORF2 and ORF3 as well as a 113nt sequence of ORF2. Positive samples with high viral loads were subjected to direct sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. hepatitis E virus RNA was detected in 34 (20.0%) of the 170 pigs following positive results in at least one set of screening real-time RT-PCR primers and probes. The swine hepatitis E virus strains clustered with the genotype hepatitis E virus-3b reference sequences in the phylogenetic analysis and showed close similarity to human hepatitis E virus isolates previously reported in Brazil.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Departamento de Medicina, Divisão de Doenças Infecciosas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: anampassos@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ana Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Passos-Castilho
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Departamento de Medicina, Divisão de Doenças Infecciosas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Celso Francisco Hernandes
authors.initials: CFH
authors.lastname: Granato
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000662:veterinary* / Q000821:virology; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology; D013552:Swine; D013553:Swine Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral
keywords: Brazil; Genotype 3; Hepatitis E virus; Pigs; Zoonosis