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. 2023 Jan 24;15(2):335.
doi: 10.3390/v15020335.

Detection of Hepatitis E Virus Genotype 3 in Feces of Capybaras (Hydrochoeris hydrochaeris) in Brazil

Lia Cunha  1 , Adriana Luchs  1 , Lais S Azevedo  1 , Vanessa C M Silva  1 , Marcilio F Lemos  1 , Antonio C Costa  2 , Adriana P Compri  1 , Yasmin França  1 , Ellen Viana  1 , Fernanda Malta  3 , Roberta S Medeiros  1 , Raquel Guiducci  1 , Simone G Morillo  1 , Michele S Gomes-Gouvea  2 , Deyvid Amgarten  3 , João R R Pinho  2   3 , Regina C Moreira  1
Affiliations

Detection of Hepatitis E Virus Genotype 3 in Feces of Capybaras (Hydrochoeris hydrochaeris) in Brazil

Lia Cunha et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging zoonotic pathogen associated with relevant public health issues. The aim of this study was to investigate HEV presence in free-living capybaras inhabiting urban parks in São Paulo state, Brazil. Molecular characterization of HEV positive samples was undertaken to elucidate the genetic diversity of the virus in these animals. A total of 337 fecal samples were screened for HEV using RT-qPCR and further confirmed by conventional nested RT-PCR. HEV genotype and subtype were determined using Sanger and next-generation sequencing. HEV was detected in one specimen (0.3%) and assigned as HEV-3f. The IAL-HEV_921 HEV-3f strain showed a close relationship to European swine, wild boar and human strains (90.7-93.2% nt), suggesting an interspecies transmission. Molecular epidemiology of HEV is poorly investigated in Brazil; subtype 3f has been reported in swine. This is the first report of HEV detected in capybara stool samples worldwide.

Keywords: Hepatitis E virus; genotype 3; phylogeny; public health; zoonosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare no conflict of interest or disclosures for the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Nucleotide based phylogenetic relatedness of IAL-HEV_921 strains (indicated in bold and by ●) (A) ORF1 and (B) ORF2 to other selected HEV strains. Maximum likelihood trees of partial nucleotide sequences were generated with MEGA X software versiom 7.0 [55] (megasoftware.net; accessed on 18 October 2022. Reference strains were obtained from the GenBank database. Brazilian HEV-3 strains are indicated by ▲. Genotypes, subtypes, accession number, isolates, countries and year of each strain are indicated. The scale indicates the number of divergent nucleotide residues. Percentages of bootstrap values are shown at the branch node.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Nucleotide based phylogenetic relatedness of IAL-HEV_921 strains (indicated in bold and by ●) (A) ORF1 and (B) ORF2 to other selected HEV strains. Maximum likelihood trees of partial nucleotide sequences were generated with MEGA X software versiom 7.0 [55] (megasoftware.net; accessed on 18 October 2022. Reference strains were obtained from the GenBank database. Brazilian HEV-3 strains are indicated by ▲. Genotypes, subtypes, accession number, isolates, countries and year of each strain are indicated. The scale indicates the number of divergent nucleotide residues. Percentages of bootstrap values are shown at the branch node.
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