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Egg whites from eggs of chickens infected experimentally with avian hepatitis E virus contain infectious virus, but evidence of complete vertical transmission is lacking

E. M. Zhou^2,

¹ Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
² Department of Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
³ Center for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Correspondence
E. M. Zhou
zhouem2005{at}yahoo.com.cn

Avian hepatitis E virus (HEV) is genetically and antigenically related to human HEV. Vertical transmission of HEV has been reported in humans, but not in other animals. In this study, we showed that avian HEV could be detected in chicken egg-white samples. Subsequently, avian HEV in egg white was found to be infectious, as evidenced by the appearance of viraemia, faecal virus shedding and seroconversion in chickens inoculated with avian HEV-positive egg white, but not in chickens inoculated with HEV-negative egg white. To further assess the possibility of vertical transmission of avian HEV, batches of embryonated eggs from infected hens were hatched, and hatched chicks were monitored for evidence of avian HEV infection. However, no virus was detected in samples collected from the hatched chicks throughout this study, suggesting that avian HEV could not complete the vertical transmission cycle. The possible implications of our findings are also discussed.

Present address: Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, College of Animal Science and Technology, Heilongjiang August First Land Reclamation Agriculture University, DaQing, Heilongjiang Province 163319, China.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the avian HEV sequences of virus isolated from egg white are DQ660974, DQ660975, DQ660976, DQ660977 and DQ660978.

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