Monitoring of hepatitis E virus in wastewater can identify clinically relevant variants
- Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is prevalent worldwide and can cause persistent infection with severe morbidity. Antiviral treatment approaches can lead to the emergence of viral variants encoding escape mutations that may impede viral clearance. The frequency of these variants remains unknown in the human population as well as environment due to limited comprehensive data on HEV diversity. In this study, we investigated the HEV prevalence and diversity of circulating variants in environmental samples, that is, wastewater and rivers from North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. HEV prevalence could be determined with 73% of samples tested positive for viral RNA via qRT-PCR. Using high-throughput sequencing, we were able to assess the overall genetic diversity in these samples and identified the presence of clinically relevant variants associated with drug resistance. In summary, monitoring variants from environmental samples could provide valuable insights into estimating HEV prevalence and identifying circulating variants that can impact treatment outcome.
| Author: | Fiona Maria RauGND, Carina ElsnerORCiDGND, Toni Luise MeisterORCiDGND, André Philipp GömerORCiDGND, René KalliesGND, Ulf DittmerGND, Eike SteinmannORCiDGND, Daniel Matthias TodtORCiDGND |
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| URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-112968 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1111/liv.15842 |
| Parent Title (English): | Liver international |
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell |
| Place of publication: | Oxford |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of Publication (online): | 2024/09/25 |
| Date of first Publication: | 2024/01/30 |
| Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
| Tag: | hepatitis E virus; surveillance; treatment plants; wastewater; wastewater-based epidemiology |
| Volume: | 44 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| First Page: | 637 |
| Last Page: | 643 |
| Note: | Dieser Beitrag ist auf Grund des DEAL-Wiley-Vertrages frei zugänglich. |
| Institutes/Facilities: | Medizinische Fakultät, Abteilung für Molekulare und Medizinische Virologie |
| Dewey Decimal Classification: | Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / Medizin, Gesundheit |
| open_access (DINI-Set): | open_access |
| faculties: | Medizinische Fakultät |
| Licence (English): |  Creative Commons - CC BY-NC 4.0 - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International |
