Molecular features of hepatitis E virus from farmed rabbits in Shandong province, China

[EN] This study was undertaken to investigate the genetic variability of hepatitis E virus (HEV) from farmed rabbits in Shandong province, China. A total of 50 fresh faecal samples from 5 rabbit farms were collected and subjected to reverse transcription and nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-nPCR) for a fragment sequence of HEV capsid gene. The results demonstrated that HEV RNA was observed in 6 faecal samples (6/50, 12.0%). In addition, the result of phylogenetic analysis showed that the 6 HEV isolates were classified into HEV-3 genotype with other rabbit HEV isolates from other countries, and shared 85.2-87.2%, 81.5-83.1%, and 77.0-78.6% nucleotide similarities with rabbit HEV isolates from Korea, the United States and France, respectively. To sum up, the HEV isolated in this study from farmed rabbits belongs to the HEV-3 genotype, and the zoonotic ability and pathogenesis of the rabbit HEV merit further study due to the fact that HEV-3 genotype has the potential to trigger zoonotic infections.This study was supported by the Intramural Fund of Hebei University of Economics and Business in 2018 (2018PY17) and the Development Plan of Science and Technology of Tai’an, China (2016NS1051)Zhang, H.; Zhou, Y.; Liu, J. (2018). Molecular features of hepatitis E virus from farmed rabbits in Shandong province, China. World Rabbit Science. 26(4):307-312. doi:10.4995/wrs.2018.10225SWORD30731226