1887

Journal of General Virology header logo

Volume 82, Issue 12

Genetic analysis of hepatitis A virus strains recovered from the environment and from patients with acute hepatitis Free

Abstract

The molecular epidemiology of hepatitis A virus (HAV) was studied by analysing HAV strains recovered from environmental water samples over a 7 year period and strains recovered from patients with acute hepatitis over a 5 year period. A total of 54 samples of raw domestic sewage and 66 samples of river water were collected. HAV particles were concentrated and detected by nested RT–PCR. HAV infection in patients with acute hepatitis was serologically diagnosed in 26 of 74 serum samples, which were also analysed by nested RT–PCR. HAV RNA was detected in 57·4% of sewage samples, 39·2% of Llobregat river water samples, 20% of Ter river water samples and 61·6% of serum samples. The HAV genomes detected were characterized further by directly sequencing a region of the 5′ non-translated region, the VP1/2A junction region and, in some samples, the 2B region. Results showed a 95% prevalence of genotype I, with nearly 50% being either subgenotype IA or subgenotype IB. Various strains were found simultaneously in both environmental and clinical samples. These strains were closely related to those described in distant geographical areas. Genotype IIIA was also found in 5% of sewage samples and in 12·5% of serum samples. Strains belonging to a common endemic genotype were not identified. The abundance of HAV in the environment produces a situation of sanitary risk, especially considering the low prevalence of antibodies in the young population.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
© Microbiology Society
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955
2001-12-01
2024-04-19
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jgv/82/12/0822955a.html?itemId=/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. APHA 1995; Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. , 19th edn. American Public Health Association Washington DC, WA, USA:
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Beneduce F., Pisani G., Divizia M., Panà A., Morace G. 1995; Complete nucleotide sequence of a cytopathic hepatitis A virus strain isolated in Italy. Virus Research 36:299–309
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Blank C. A., Anderson D. A., Beard M., Lemon S. M. 2000; Infection of polarized cultures of human intestinal epithelial cells with hepatitis A virus: vectorial release of progeny virions through apical cellular membranes. Journal of Virology 74:6476–6484
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Boom R., Sol C. J. A., Salimans M. M. M., Jansen C. L., Wertheim-van Dillen P. M. E., van der Noordaa J. 1990; Rapid and simple method for purification of nucleic acids. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 28:495–503
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Brown E. A., Day S. P., Jansen R. W., Lemon S. M. 1991; The 5′ nontranslated region of hepatitis A virus RNA: secondary structure and elements required for translation in vitro . Journal of Virology 65:5828–5838
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bruguera M., Salleras L., Plans P., Vidal J., Navas E., Domínguez A., Batalla J., Taberner J. L., Espuñes J. 1999; Changes in seroepidemiology of hepatitis A virus infection in Catalonia in the period 1989–1996. Implications for a new vaccination strategy. Medicina Clínica (Barcelona, Spain: 112406–408
  7. Cohen J. I., Rosenblum B., Ticehurst J. R., Daemer R. J., Feinstone S. M., Purcell R. H. 1987a; Complete nucleotide sequence of an attenuated hepatitis A virus: comparison with wild-type virus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 84:2497–2501
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Cohen J. I., Ticehurst R., Purcell R. H., Bucker-White A., Baroudy B. M. 1987b; Complete nucleotide sequence of wild-type hepatitis A virus: comparison with different strains of hepatitis A virus and other picornaviruses. Journal of Virology 61:50–59
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Dal-Ré R., García-Corbeira P., García-de-Lomas J. 2000; A large percentage of the Spanish population under 30 years of age is not protected against hepatitis A. Journal of Medical Virology 60:363–366
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Emerson S. U., Huang Y. K., Purcell R. H. 1993; 2B and 2C mutations are essential but mutations throughout the genome of HAV contribute to adaptation to cell culture. Virology 184:475–480
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Felsenstein J. 1985; Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap. Evolution 39:783–791
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Felsenstein J. 1993 PHYLIP: Phylogeny Inference Package, version 3.5c Department of Genetics, University of Washington; Seattle, WA, USA:
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Gellis S. S., Stokes J., Brother G. M., Hall W. M., Gilmore H. R., Beyer E., Morrisey R. A. 1945; The use of human immune serum globulin (gamma globulin) in infectious (epidemic) hepatitis in the Mediterranean theatre of operations. Journal of the American Medical Association 128:1062–1063
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Graff J., Normann A., Feinstone S. M., Flehmig B. 1994; Nucleotide sequence of wild-type hepatitis A virus GBM in comparison with two cell culture-adapted variants. Journal of Virology 68:548–554
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Jansen R. W., Siegl G., Lemon S. M. 1990; Molecular epidemiology of human hepatitis A virus defined by an antigen-capture polymerase chain reaction method. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 87:2867–2871
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Lemon S. M., Binn L. N. 1983; Antigenic relatedness of two strains of hepatitis A virus determined by cross-neutralization. Infection and Immunity 42:418–420
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Lemon S. M., Murphy P. C., Shields P. A., Ping L. H., Feinstone S. M., Cromeans T., Jansen R. W. 1991; Antigenic and genetic variation in cytopathic hepatitis A virus variants arising during persistent infection: evidence for genetic recombination. Journal of Virology 65:2056–2065
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Linemeyer D. L., Menke J. G., Martin-Gallardo A., Hughes J. V., Young A., Mitra S. W. 1985; Molecular cloning and partial sequencing of hepatitis A viral cDNA. Journal of Virology 54:247–255
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Lopalco P. L., Salleras L., Barbuti S., Germinario C., Bruguera M., Buti M., Domínguez A. 2001; Hepatitis A and B in children and adolescents: what can we learn from Puglia (Italy) and Catalonia (Spain)?. Vaccine 19:470–474
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Nainan O. V., Margolis H. S., Robertson B. H., Balayan M., Brinton M. A. 1991; Sequence analysis of a new hepatitis A virus naturally infecting cynomolgus macaques ( Macaca fascicularis ). Journal of General Virology 72:1685–1689
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Najarian R., Caput D., Gee W., Potter S. J., Renard A., Merryweather J., Van Nest G., Dina D. 1985; Primary structure and gene organization of human hepatitis A virus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 82:2627–2631
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Neefe J. R., Gellis S. S., Stokes J. 1964; Homologous serum hepatitis and infectious (epidemic) hepatitis. Journal of Medical Virology 1:3–22
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Page R. 1996; TREEVIEW: an application to display phylogenetic trees on personal computers. Computer Applications in the Biosciences 12:357–358
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Papaevangelou G. 1992; Epidemiology of hepatitis A in Mediterranean countries. Vaccine 10 (Suppl. 1):S63–S66
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Paul A. V., Tada H., von der Helm K., Wissel T., Kiehn R., Wimmer E., Deinhardt F. 1987; The entire nucleotide sequence of the genome of human hepatitis A virus (isolate MBB). Virus Research 8:153–171
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Pina S., Puig M., Lucena F., Jofre J., Girones R. 1998; Viral pollution in the environment and in shellfish: human adenovirus detected by PCR as an index of human viruses. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 64:3376–3382
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Pina S., Buti M., Cotrina M., Piella J., Girones R. 2000; HEV identified in serum from humans with acute hepatitis and in sewage of animal origin in Spain. Journal of Hepatology 33:826–833
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Puig M., Jofre J., Lucena F., Allard A., Wadell G., Girones R. 1994; Detection of adenoviruses and enteroviruses in polluted waters by nested PCR amplification. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 60:2963–2970
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Rakela J., Fay O. H., Stevenson D., Gordon I., Mosley J. W. 1976; Similarities of two hepatitis A virus strains. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 54:561–564
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Robertson B. H., Khanna B., Nainan O. V., Margolis H. S. 1991; Epidemiologic patterns of wild-type hepatitis A virus determined by genetic variation. Journal of Infectious Diseases 163:286–292
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Robertson B. H., Jansen R. W., Khanna B., Totsuka A., Nainan O. V., Siegl G., Widell A., Margolis H. S., Isomura S., Ito K., Ishizu T., Moritsugu Y., Lemon S. M. 1992; Genetic relatedness of hepatitis A virus strains recovered from different geographical regions. Journal of General Virology 73:1365–1377
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Rueckert R. R., Wimmer E. 1984; Systematic nomenclature of picornavirus proteins. Journal of Virology 50:957–959
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Sobsey M. D., Glass J. S. 1980; Poliovirus concentration from tap water with electropositive adsorbent filters. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 40:201–210
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Sobsey M. D., Jones B. L. 1979; Concentration of poliovirus from tap water using positively charged microporous filters. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 37:588–595
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Sobsey M. D., Shields P. A., Hauchman F. S., Davis A. L., Rullman V. A., Bosch A. 1988; Survival and persistence of hepatitis A virus in environmental samples. In Viral Hepatitis and Liver Diseases pp 121–124 Edited by Zuckerman A. J. New York: Alan R. Liss;
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Stene-Johansen K., Skaug K., Blystad H. 1999; Surveillance of hepatitis A by molecular epidemiologic studies. Tidsskrift for den Norske Laegeforening 119:3725–3729
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Sverdlov S. D., Tsarev S. A., Markova S. V., Vasilenko S. K., Chizhikov V. E., Petrov N. A., Kusov Y. Y., Natashenko T. A., Balayan M. S. 1987; Cloning and expression of hepatitis A virus genome in E. coli cells. Molekulyarnaya Genetika Mikrobiologiya i Virusologiya 6:129–133
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Thompson J. D., Higgins D. G., Gibson T. J. 1994; CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, positions-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Research 22:4673–4680
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Ticehurst J., Cohen J. I., Feinstone S. M., Purcell R. H., Jansen R. W., Lemon S. M. 1989; Replication of hepatitis A virus: new ideas from studies with cloned cDNA. In Molecular Aspects of Picornaviral Infection and Detection pp 27–50 Edited by Semler B. L., Ehrenfeld E. Washington DC: American Society for Microbiology;
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Tsarev S. A., Emerson S. U., Balayan M. S., Ticehurst J., Purcell R. H. 1991; Simian hepatitis A virus (HAV) strain AGM-27: comparison of genome structure and growth in cell culture with other HAV strains. Journal of General Virology 72:1677–1683
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Yotsuyanagi H., Koike K., Yasuda K., Moriya K., Shintani Y., Fujie H., Kurokawa K., Lino S. 1996; Prolonged fecal excretion of hepatitis A virus in adult patients with hepatitis A as determined by polymerase chain reaction. Hepatology 24:10–13
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955
Loading
Genetic analysis of hepatitis A virus strains recovered from the environment and from patients with acute hepatitis
J. Gen. Virol. 82, 2955 (2001); https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-82-12-2955
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Most cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error