Risk analysis and seroprevalence of HEV in people living with HIV/AIDS in Brazil.

Acute Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) can lead to fulminant hepatic failure, cirrhosis and death. The prevalence of anti-HEV antibodies within this group varies according to the geographical area. However, in South America, studies concerning the detection of HEV in PLHA are rare. Here, we investigated the presence of HEV by serological and molecular detection and evaluated the risk factors associated with infection in PLHA in Pernambuco state, Brazilian Northeast. Serological and molecular detection of HEV was performed in 366 samples of PLHA by ELISA for anti-HEV IgG and RT-PCR, respectively. Anti-HEV IgG prevalence was 4.1% (15/366) and no HEV RNA was detected. Concerning the risk factors, we evaluated, in multivariable analysis, age, years of school, sexual orientation, oral-anal sex, use of injectable drugs and piped water. Among them, only piped water availability could be associated with the HEV infection in PLHA (OR: 0.08; CI 95%: 0.01-0.66; p = 0.0182). This study showed for the first time the association of piped water as protection factor for HEV infection in PLHA. Finally, this is also the first report of HEV seroprevalence in PLHA in the Northeast Brazil.

Use of homologous recombination in yeast to create chimeric bovine viral diarrhea virus cDNA clones.

The open reading frame of a Brazilian bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) strain, IBSP4ncp, was recombined with the untranslated regions of the reference NADL strain by homologous recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, resulting in chimeric full-length cDNA clones of BVDV (chi-NADL/IBSP4ncp#2 and chi-NADL/IBSP4ncp#3). The recombinant clones were successfully recovered, resulting in viable viruses, having the kinetics of replication, focus size, and morphology similar to those of the parental virus, IBSP4ncp. In addition, the chimeric viruses remained stable for at least 10 passages in cell culture, maintaining their replication efficiency unaltered. Nucleotide sequencing revealed a few point mutations; nevertheless, the phenotype of the rescued viruses was nearly identical to that of the parental virus in all experiments. Thus, genetic stability of the chimeric clones and their phenotypic similarity to the parental virus confirm the ability of the yeast-based homologous recombination to maintain characteristics of the parental virus from which the recombinant viruses were derived. The data also support possible use of the yeast system for the manipulation of the BVDV genome.