Liver Transudate, a Potential Alternative to Detect Anti-Hepatitis E Virus Antibodies in Pigs and Wild Boars (Sus scrofa)

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funding: This research was funded by the Spanish National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), grant number RTA 2014-00024-C04-04. Clara Duque´s contract is partially financed by the“Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte de la Comunidad de Madrid” (Iniciativa de Empleo Juvenil) and the European Social Fund (PEJ-2017-AI/SAL- 6740).
In recent years, cases of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection have increased in Europe in association with the consumption of contaminated food, mainly from pork products but also from wild boars. The animal’s serum is usually tested for the presence of anti-HEV antibodies and viral RNA but, in many cases such as during hunting, an adequate serum sample cannot be obtained. In the present study, liver transudate was evaluated as an alternative matrix to serum for HEV detection. A total of 125 sera and liver transudates were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay at different dilutions (1:2, 1:10, 1:20), while 58 samples of serum and liver transudate were checked for the presence of HEV RNA by RT-qPCR. Anti- HEV antibodies were detected by ELISA in 68.0% of the serum samples, and in 61.6% of the undiluted transudate, and in 70.4%, 56.8%, and 44.8% of 1:2, 1:10, or 1:20 diluted transudate, respectively. The best results were obtained for the liver transudate at 1:10 dilution, based on the Kappa statistic (0.630) and intraclass correlation coefficient (0.841). HEV RNA was detected by RT-qPCR in 22.4% of the serum samples and 6.9% of the transudate samples, all samples used for RT-qPCR were positive by ELISA. Our results indicate that liver transudate may be an alternative matrix to serum for the detection of anti-HEV antibodies.
Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA)
Comunidad de Madrid
European Union
Depto. de Sanidad Animal
Centro de Vigilancia Sanitaria Veterinaria (VISAVET)
Fac. de Veterinaria
TRUE
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