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Review
. 2013 Oct;58(2):357-62.
doi: 10.1016/j.jcv.2013.02.006. Epub 2013 Mar 7.

Risk of zoonotic transmission of HEV from rabbits

Sébastien Lhomme  1 , Martine Dubois, Florence Abravanel, Sokunthea Top, Stéphane Bertagnoli, Jean-Luc Guerin, Jacques Izopet
Affiliations
Review

Risk of zoonotic transmission of HEV from rabbits

Sébastien Lhomme et al. J Clin Virol. 2013 Oct.

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus strains from rabbits indicate that these mammals may be a reservoir for HEVs that cause infection in humans. Further issues remain to be clarified, including whether the genotype of rabbit HEV differs from human and swine HEV genotype 3 and whether rabbit HEV can infect human and other animals. HEV was found in farmed rabbits in several geographic areas of China, in USA and more recently in France. The prevalence of antibodies against HEV was 36%, 57% and 55% in rabbits from Virginia (USA), Gansu Province and Beijing (China), respectively. HEV RNA was detected in 16.5% of serum samples from farmed rabbits in Virginia, 7.5% in Gansu Province and 7.0% in Beijing. HEV RNA was detected in 7% of bile samples from farmed rabbits and in 23% of liver samples from wild rabbits in France. The full-length genomic sequences analysis indicates that all the rabbit strains belong to the same clade. Nucleotide sequences were 72.2-78.2% identical to HEV genotypes 1-4. Comparison with HEV sequences of human strains circulating in France and reference sequences identified a human strain closely related to rabbit HEV. A 93-nucleotide insertion in the X domain of the ORF1 of the human strain and in all the rabbit HEV strains was found. Moreover, the ability of rabbit HEV to cause cross-species infection in a pig model has recently been demonstrated. Rabbit HEV can replicate efficiently in human cell lines. Collectively, these data support the possibility of zoonotic transmission of HEV from rabbits.

Keywords: HEV; Hepatitis E virus; Rabbit; Zoonosis; hepatitis E virus.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Phylogenetic tree for the 1400-bp sequence of open reading frame 1 of the non-structural protein. Round: rabbit HEV. Triangle: human strains circulating in France. Diamond: reference strains. Genbank accession numbers are shown for each HEV strain. Scale bar indicates the nucleotide substitutions per site.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Phylogenetic tree based on full-length sequences of hepatitis E virus (HEV) (taken from Izopet et al., Emerg Iinfect Dis, 2012; 18(8)-1274-81). Round: rabbit HEV. Triangle: human strains circulating in France. Diamond: reference strains. Genbank accession numbers are shown for each HEV strain. Scale bar indicates the nucleotide substitutions per site.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Molecular signature of rabbit HEV in ORF1. The rabbit HEV strains present a 93-nucleotide insertion in the X domain of the ORF1 in comparison with other strains. A human strain (TLS-18516) also presents this insertion, supporting the potential zoonotic transmission from rabbits to human.
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