Asymptomatic hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections have been found in blood donors from various European countries, but the natural course is rarely specified. Here, we compared the progression of HEV viraemia, serostatus and liver-specific enzymes in 10 blood donors with clinically asymptomatic genotype 3 HEV infection, measuring HEV RNA concentrations, plasma concentrations of alanine/aspartate ...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that can cause hepatitis in an epidemic fashion. HEV usually causes asymptomatic or limited acute infections in immunocompetent individuals, whereas in immunosuppressed individuals such as transplant recipients, HEV can cause chronic infections. The risks and outcomes of HEV co-infection in patients infected with human immunodeficiency viru...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection can induce infertility and miscarriage in pregnant women and infect neonates through vertical transmission. However, the mechanism of infertility and vertical transmission remains unclear. In the present study, we evaluated the replication of HEV in the ovary and structural and molecular changes induced by HEV after intraperitoneal injection of HEV in rabbits. ...

In Europe, autochthonous hepatitis E is caused by genotype 3 hepatitis E virus (HEV) in almost all cases. A total of 15 infections with genotype 4 HEV were diagnosed in France from May 2009 to April 2012, and all but one of the HEV-4 strains implicated in these infections were genetically related and highly similar to HEV-4 sequences isolated from swine in Belgium. In addition, 5 autochthonous ...

Using a faecal suspension with high load of Hepatitis E virus (HEV) (2.0x10(7) copies ml-1, genotype 3), we developed an efficient cell-culture system for HEV in a hepatocarcinoma cell line (PLC/PRF/5). HEV progeny released in the culture medium were passaged five times successively in PLC/PRF/5 cells. The initial day of appearance and load of HEV detectable in the culture supernatant after ino...

Serum samples collected from 68 patients (age, mean +/- the standard deviation [SD], 56.3 +/- 12.8 years) at admission who were subsequently molecularly diagnosed as having hepatitis E and from 2,781 individuals who were assumed not to have been recently infected with hepatitis E virus (HEV; negative controls; 52.9 +/- 18.9 years), were tested for immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgA classes of antib...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an important pathogen. The animal strain of HEV, swine HEV, is related to human HEV. The genotype 3 swine HEV can infect humans and genotype 3 human HEV can infect pigs. The genotype 4 swine and human HEV strains are genetically related, but it is unknown whether genotype 4 human HEV can infect pigs. A swine bioassay was utilized in this study to determine whether gen...

A truncated structural protein of hepatitis E virus (HEV), p239, occurs as 23 nm particles consisting of partial homodimers. As the latter resemble the HEV capsomere structurally and antigenically, it was postulated that the recombinant protein may serve as a probe for the HEV receptor. This hypothesis was supported by findings that purified p239 bound and penetrated different cell lines that a...

HEV infections in human and pigs have been reported in many countries; however, the precise distribution and multiplication of this virus in the host remains poorly understood. In this study, we examined the distribution and multiplication of HEV genotype 3 in two piglets at the early phase of intravenous infection, and also examined the virus distribution in a naturally infected pig. We develo...

Information about the spectrum of disease caused by hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 is emerging. During 2004-2009, at 2 hospitals in the United Kingdom and France, among 126 patients with locally acquired acute and chronic HEV genotype 3 infection, neurologic complications developed in 7 (5.5%): inflammatory polyradiculopathy (n = 3), Guillain-Barre syndrome (n = 1), bilateral brachial neuri...