KU Leuven Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, Laboratory of Virology and Chemotherapy, Leuven, Belgium.
Aligos Therapeutics, Leuven, Belgium.
Antiviral Res. 2023 Aug;216:105670. doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2023.105670. Epub 2023 Jul 13.
The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major cause of hepatitis, with an estimated 3.3 million symptomatic cases annually. There is no HEV-specific treatment besides the off-label use of ribavirin and a vaccine is only available in China and Pakistan. To aid the development of therapeutic and preventive strategies, there is a need for convenient HEV infection models in small laboratory animals. To this end, we make use of the rat hepatitis E virus. Human infections with this virus have been reported in recent years, making it a relevant pathogen for the establishment of a small animal infection model. We here report that oral gavage of a feces suspension, containing a pre-defined viral RNA load, results in a reproducible synchronized infection in athymic nude rats. This route of administration mimics fecal-oral transmission in a standardized fashion. The suitability of the model to study the effect of antiviral drugs was assessed by using ribavirin, which significantly reduced viral loads in the feces, liver, and other tissues.
戊型肝炎病毒（HEV）是肝炎的主要病因之一，每年估计有 330 万例有症状病例。除了利巴韦林的标签外用药之外，没有针对 HEV 的特定治疗方法，而且疫苗仅在中国和巴基斯坦可用。为了帮助制定治疗和预防策略，需要在小型实验动物中建立方便的 HEV 感染模型。为此，我们利用大鼠戊型肝炎病毒。近年来已有人类感染这种病毒的报道，使其成为建立小动物感染模型的相关病原体。我们在此报告，口服含有预定病毒 RNA 载量的粪便悬液可在无胸腺裸鼠中产生可重复的同步感染。这种给药途径以标准化的方式模拟粪-口传播。通过使用利巴韦林评估该模型研究抗病毒药物效果的适用性，利巴韦林可显著降低粪便、肝脏和其他组织中的病毒载量。
