Proposal for a new subtype of the zoonotic genotype 3 Hepatitis E virus: HEV-3l

Luca De Sabato; Philippe Lemey; Bram Vrancken; Lebana Bonfanti; Letizia Ceglie; Gabriele Vaccari; Ilaria Di Bartolo

doi:10.1016/j.virusres.2018.02.010

Proposal for a new subtype of the zoonotic genotype 3 Hepatitis E virus: HEV-3l

Virus Res. 2018 Mar 15:248:1-4. doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2018.02.010. Epub 2018 Feb 13.

Authors

Luca De Sabato¹, Philippe Lemey², Bram Vrancken³, Lebana Bonfanti⁴, Letizia Ceglie⁴, Gabriele Vaccari⁵, Ilaria Di Bartolo⁶

Affiliations

¹ Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Rome, Italy; University Roma Tre, Department of Sciences, Viale Guglielmo Marconi 446, 00146 Rome, Italy.
² KU Leuven, University of Leuven, Rega Institute, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Electronic address: philippe.lemey@kuleuven.be.
³ KU Leuven, University of Leuven, Rega Institute, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
⁴ Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, Viale dell'Università, 10, 35020 Legnaro PD, Italy.
⁵ Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: gabriele.vaccari@iss.it.
⁶ Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Veterinary Public Health, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161, Rome, Italy.

PMID: 29452164
DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2018.02.010

Abstract

The near-complete genomic sequences of two hepatitis E virus (HEV) strains, detected from feces of infected pigs, were obtained. Phylogenetic analysis and p-distance comparisons of the complete coding regions showed a close relationship to the French swine strain FR-SHEV3c-like detected in 2006 (p-distance value 0.101), belonging to HEV-3 but not assigned to any known subtype. The three HEV sequences showed, relatively high nucleotide distances (p-distance >0.129) compared to the other defined HEV subtype references and unclassified strains. The HEV classification criteria and the high sequence similarity suggest that these strains can be assigned to a putative novel subtype of genotype 3, HEV-3l.

Keywords: Complete genome; Genotype 3; Hepatitis E virus; Next generation sequencing; Subtype; Swine.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Genome, Viral
Genotype*
Hepatitis E / virology*
Hepatitis E virus / classification
Hepatitis E virus / genetics*
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Humans
Phylogeny
RNA, Viral
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Swine
Swine Diseases / virology
Zoonoses / virology*

Substances

RNA, Viral