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. 2022 Aug;18(8):20220048.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0048. Epub 2022 Aug 10.

Hepatitis C virus infection reduces the lifespan of chimpanzees used in biomedical research

Satoshi Hirata  1   2 , Kristin Havercamp  1 , Yumi Yamanashi  1   3 , Toshifumi Udono  1   2
Affiliations

Hepatitis C virus infection reduces the lifespan of chimpanzees used in biomedical research

Satoshi Hirata et al. Biol Lett. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Chimpanzees were used in hepatitis research for over three decades with the aim to identify and develop treatments for the virus, a leading cause of chronic liver disease in humans. We used a dataset of 120 chimpanzees housed at a single institution in Japan, 22 of whom became chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), to examine whether HCV infection results in a reduced lifespan as reported in humans. Survival analysis showed that HCV carriers experienced a higher mortality risk compared with non-carriers. Although no chimpanzee died from hepatic disease, carriers showed higher gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (γGTP) levels compared with non-carriers suggesting that HCV infection negatively affected their liver condition. These results provide evidence that special attention is necessary to monitor the long-term condition of ex-biomedical primates.

Keywords: biomedical research; chimpanzee; hepatitis; lifespan; longevity; mortality.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Survival curves of HCV carrier and non-carrier chimpanzees.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
γGTP values (IU l–1) for individual chimpanzees (HCV carriers in red and non-carriers in blue). Boxplot shows the median, interquartile-range and outliers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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