{"doi":"10.3389/fmed.2021.726363","title":"Rat Hepatitis E Virus: Presence in Humans in South-Western France?","abstract":"<jats:p><jats:bold>Background:</jats:bold> Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is one of the most common causes of hepatitis worldwide, and South-Western France is a high HEV seroprevalence area. While most cases of HEV infection are associated with the species Orthohepevirus-A, several studies have reported a few cases of HEV infections due to Orthohepevirus-C (HEV-C) that usually infects rats. Most of these human cases have occurred in immunocompromised patients. We have screened for the presence of HEV-C in our region.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods and Results:</jats:bold> We tested 224 sera, mostly from immunocompromised patients, for HEV-C RNA using an in-house real time RT-PCR. Liver function tests gave elevated results in 63% of patients: mean ALT was 159 IU/L (normal &amp;lt; 40 IU/L). Anti-HEV IgG (49%) and anti-HEV IgM (9.4%) were frequently present but none of the samples tested positive for HEV-C RNA.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Conclusion:</jats:bold> HEV-C does not circulate in the human population of South-Western France, despite the high seroprevalence of anti-HEV IgG.</jats:p>","journal":"Frontiers in Medicine","year":2021,"id":594542,"datarank":0.47032413238937254,"base_score":3.1354942159291497,"endowment":3.1354942159291497,"self_citation_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.47032413238937254,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1522038,"name":"Sébastien Lhomme","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1522039,"name":"Jean Marie Péron","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1522040,"name":"Isabelle Da Silva","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1522041,"name":"Suzanne Tavitian","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":126780,"name":"Nassim Kamar","orcid":"0000-0003-1930-8964","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":230985,"name":"Jacques Izopet","orcid":"0000-0002-8462-3234","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1522042,"name":"Florence Abravanel","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1522037,"name":"Delphine Parraud","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Rat Hepatitis E Virus: Presence in Humans in South-Western France?","abstract":"<jats:p><jats:bold>Background:</jats:bold> Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is one of the most common causes of hepatitis worldwide, and South-Western France is a high HEV seroprevalence area. While most cases of HEV infection are associated with the species Orthohepevirus-A, several studies have reported a few cases of HEV infections due to Orthohepevirus-C (HEV-C) that usually infects rats. Most of these human cases have occurred in immunocompromised patients. We have screened for the presence of HEV-C in our region.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods and Results:</jats:bold> We tested 224 sera, mostly from immunocompromised patients, for HEV-C RNA using an in-house real time RT-PCR. Liver function tests gave elevated results in 63% of patients: mean ALT was 159 IU/L (normal &amp;lt; 40 IU/L). Anti-HEV IgG (49%) and anti-HEV IgM (9.4%) were frequently present but none of the samples tested positive for HEV-C RNA.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Conclusion:</jats:bold> HEV-C does not circulate in the human population of South-Western France, despite the high seroprevalence of anti-HEV IgG.</jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"34540871","pmcid":"PMC8448288","openalex_id":null,"authors":[],"funders":[],"total_grants":0,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.726363/pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.726363/full","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://ut3-toulouseinp.hal.science/hal-03771187","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/502ff0bc4b2740ae9370b177bc793696","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"http://europepmc.org/pmc/articles/PMC8448288","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/8448288","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC8448288","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC8448288?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"}],"fields_of_study":[],"mesh_terms":[],"keywords":["Rodent","Hepatitis E virus","Chronic hepatitis","Hepatitis E","Zoonosis","Immunocompromised","Rat Hepatitis E Virus","South-western France"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-27T14:50:43.359568Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}