Hepatitis E Virus in 3 Types of Laboratory Animals, China, 2012-2015

Abstract

We found seroprevalences for hepatitis E virus (HEV) of 7.5%, 18.5%, and 83.3% in specific pathogen-free (SPF) laboratory rabbits, monkeys, and pigs, respectively, in China. HEV RNA was detected in 4.8% of SPF rabbits, and 11 rabbits had latent infections. Screening for HEV in SPF animals before relevant experiments are conducted is recommended.

Keywords: China; HEV; hepatitis E virus; laboratory animals; monkeys; pigs; rabbits; virus latency; viruses.

Figure

Phylogenetic analysis of hepatitis E virus (HEV) isolates from specific pathogen-free (SPF) rabbits, China, 2012−2015. The phylogenetic tree was constructed by using the neighbor-joining method, a partial nucleotide sequence of the open reading frame 2 region, and reported HEV sequences in GenBank as references. One thousand resamplings of the data were used to calculate percentages (values along branches) of tree branches obtained. Black circles indicate SPF rabbit isolates obtained during this study. GenBank accession numbers of all reference sequences (in parentheses) are FJ906895 (GDC9), AB740222 (rbIM004), JX565469 (CMC-1), AB740221 (rbIM022), GU937805 (ch-bj-n1), JX121233 (CHN-BJ-R14), JQ013793 (TLS-18516), JQ013792 (W7-57), AF455784 (Osh-205), AF060668 (US1), AY115488 (swArkell), AB189070 (JBOAR-1Hyo04), AP003430 (JRA1), JF309217 (GS-NJ-10), AY723745 (IND-SW-00-01), AB097812 (HE-JA1), M74506 (Mexican), AY204877 (T3-Chad), and AF459438 (Yam67). Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.