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Comparative Study
. 2002 Dec;40(12):4576-80.
doi: 10.1128/JCM.40.12.4576-4580.2002.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) capsid antigens derived from viruses of human and swine origin are equally efficient for detecting anti-HEV by enzyme immunoassay

R E Engle  1 , C Yu, S U Emerson, X-J Meng, R H Purcell
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) capsid antigens derived from viruses of human and swine origin are equally efficient for detecting anti-HEV by enzyme immunoassay

R E Engle et al. J Clin Microbiol. 2002 Dec.

Abstract

The recombinant truncated ORF2 (capsid) antigen derived from the Meng strain of swine hepatitis E virus (HEV) differs from that of the Sar-55 strain of human HEV by approximately 5% at the amino acid level. Serial serum samples from two chimpanzees and six rhesus monkeys experimentally infected with HEV were tested with one enzyme immunoassay (EIA) based on the Sar-55 antigen and with a second EIA based on the Meng antigen. We obtained 98% agreement (kappa = 0.952) by direct comparison. The virtually identical results obtained with these antigens in detecting seroconversion following infection with HEV suggests that they were reacting with antibodies that detect the same or very similar epitopes of HEV. We then tested human and swine serum samples for anti-HEV in EIAs that utilized one or the other of the two ORF2 antigens and showed that these results were also virtually identical. The specimens tested included swine sera from the United States, Canada, China, Korea, and Thailand and sera from veterinarians, U.S. and non-U.S. volunteer blood donors, and U.S. and non-U.S. animal handlers. We tested 792 swine sera and obtained 93% agreement (kappa = 0.839). We similarly tested 882 human sera and obtained 99% agreement (kappa = 0.938). Moreover, we found virtually no difference in the levels of prevalence of anti-HEV as measured by the two tests, again suggesting that the antigens derived from human and swine HEV contain the same immunodominant epitopes.

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Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Anti-HEV IgG responses of two chimpanzees (CH1374 and CH1375) experimentally infected with the Pakistani (genotype 1) strain Sar-55. Anti-HEV was measured by EIAs with capsid antigen generated from the Sar-55 (solid line) and Meng (dashed line) HEV strains. The values are expressed as sample-over-cutoff ratios, and 1.00 is the positive baseline value.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Anti-HEV IgG responses of six rhesus monkeys (RH H389, RH H400, RH H402, RH H461, RH H572, and RH H597) experimentally infected with the Mexican (genotype 2) strain Mex-14 (RH H461 and RH H572), swine (genotype 3) strain Meng (RH H400), U.S. (genotype 3) strain US2 (RH H389), and Taiwan (genotype 4) strain 1380 (RH H402 and RH H597) of HEV. Anti-HEV was measured and symbols are defined as described in the legend to Fig. 1.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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