A rat model for hepatitis E virus

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is one of the prime causes of acute viral hepatitis, whereas chronic hepatitis E is increasingly recognized as an important problem in the transplant setting. Nevertheless, the fundamental understanding of the biology of HEV replication is limited and there are few therapeutic options. The development of such therapies is partially hindered by the lack of a robust and convenient animal model. We propose the infection of athymic nude rats with the rat HEV strain LA-B350 as such a model. A cDNA clone pLA-B350 was constructed and the infectivity of its capped RNA transcripts was confirmed in vitro and in vivo Furthermore, a subgenomic replicon pLA-B350/luc was constructed and validated for in vitro antiviral studies. Interestingly, rat HEV proved to be less sensitive to the antiviral activity of alpha interferon, ribavirin and mycophenolic acid, than genotype 3 HEV. As a proof-of-concept, part of the C-terminal polymerase sequence of pLA-B350/luc was swapped with its genotype 3 HEV counterpart: the resulting chimeric replicon replicated with comparable efficiency as the wild-type construct, confirming that LA-B350 is amenable to humanization. Finally, ribavirin effectively inhibited LA-B350 replication in athymic nude rats, confirming the suitability of the rat model for antiviral studies.

Jaar van publicatie:2016

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

BOF-publication weight:6

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Private, Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open