Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Artigo Acesso aberto Produção Nacional Revisado por pares

BIBTEX RIS

Evolutionary study of potentially zoonotic hepatitis E virus genotype 3 from swine in Northeast Brazil

2019; Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde; Volume: 114; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1590/0074-02760180585

1678-8060

Edmilson Ferreira de Oliveira-Filho, Debora RL dos Santos, Ricardo Durães‐Carvalho, Adalúcia da Silva, Gustavo Barbosa de Lima, Antônio Fernando Barbosa Batista Filho, Lindomar Pena, Laura HVG Gil,

Veterinary medicine and infectious diseases

Hepatitis E virus (HEV), an emerging virus associated with acute hepatic disease, leads to thousands of deaths worldwide. HEV has already been reported in Brazil; however, there is a lack of epidemiological and molecular information on the genetic variability, taxonomy, and evolution of HEV. It is thus unclear whether hepatitis E is a neglected disease in Brazil or it has low relevance for public health in this country. Here, for the first time, we report the presence of HEV in Northeast Brazil. A total of 119 swine faecal samples were screened for the presence of HEV RNA using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and further confirmed by conventional RT-PCR; among these, two samples were identified as positive. Molecular evolution analyses based on capsid sequences revealed that the samples had close proximities to HEV sequences belonging to genotype 3 and were genetically related to subtype 3f isolated in humans. Parsimony ancestral states analysis indicated gene flow events from HEV cross-species infection, suggesting an important role of pig hosts in viral spillover. HEV's ability for zoonotic transmission by inter-species host switching as well as its possible adaptation to new animal species remain important issues for human health.