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Analysis of the complete genomic sequence of an apparently avirulent strain of avian hepatitis E virus (avian HEV) identified major genetic differences compared with the prototype pathogenic strain of avian HEV

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 24061-0342, USA

Correspondence
X.-J. Meng
xjmeng{at}vt.edu

Avian hepatitis E virus (HEV) was identified from chickens with hepatitis–splenomegaly syndrome. In this study, the complete genomic sequence of an apparently avirulent strain of avian HEV was determined to be 6649 nt in length, excluding the poly(A) tail, which is 5 nt shorter than the prototype avian HEV. Sequence analyses revealed that the ORF1 has 89.6 % nucleotide sequence identity, with numerous non-silent mutations and deletions, compared to the prototype strain. The ORF2 capsid gene showed 90.7 % sequence identity with six non-silent mutations, and ORF3 had four non-silent mutations with 97 % sequence identity. Overall, the apparently avirulent strain shares only 90.1 % nucleotide sequence identity with the prototype strain. The identification of significant non-silent mutations in the capsid gene and other regions suggests that these mutations may play a role in HEV attenuation. This is the first report of the full-length sequence of an apparently avirulent strain of HEV.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the avirulent HEV sequence obtained in this study is EF206691.

The GenBank accession numbers for all sequences and primers used in this study are available as supplementary material in JGV Online.

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