TY - JOUR AU - Izopet, Jacques AU - Dubois, Martine AU - Bertagnoli, Stéphane AU - Lhomme, Sébastien AU - Marchandeau, Stéphane AU - Boucher, Samuel AU - Kamar, Nassim AU - Abravanel, Florence AU - Guérin, Jean-Luc T1 - Hepatitis E Virus Strains in Rabbits and Evidence of a Closely Related Strain in Humans, France T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2012 VL - 18 IS - 8 SP - 1274 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Hepatitis E virus (HEV) strains from rabbits indicate that these mammals may be a reservoir for HEVs that cause infection in humans. To determine HEV prevalence in rabbits and the strains’ genetic characteristics, we tested bile, liver, and additional samples from farmed and wild rabbits in France. We detected HEV RNA in 7% (14/200) of bile samples from farmed rabbits (in 2009) and in 23% (47/205) of liver samples from wild rabbits (in 2007–2010). Full-length genomic sequences indicated that all rabbit strains belonged to the same clade (nucleotide sequences 72.2%–78.2% identical to HEV genotypes 1–4). Comparison with HEV sequences of human strains and reference sequences identified a human strain closely related to rabbit strain HEV. We found a 93-nt insertion in the X domain of open reading frame 1 of the human strain and all rabbit HEV strains. These findings indicate that the host range of HEV in Europe is expanding and that zoonotic transmission of HEV from rabbits is possible. KW - Hepatitis E virus KW - rabbit KW - zoonosis, virus KW - zoonoses KW - viruses KW - Europe KW - France KW - transmission KW - human DO - 10.3201/eid1808.120057 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/8/12-0057_article ER - End of Reference