Identification of hepatitis B virus indigenous to chimpanzees

Identification of hepatitis B virus indigenous to chimpanzees

^*Hepatitis Branch A33, Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta GA 30333; and ^†Hepatitis Viruses Section, Building 7, Room 201, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892

Contributed by Robert H. Purcell

Abstract

Hepatitis B viruses (HBV) and related viruses, classified in the Hepadnaviridae family, are found in a wide variety of mammals and birds. Although the chimpanzee has been the primary experimental model of HBV infection, this species has not been considered a natural host for the virus. Retrospective analysis of 13 predominantly wild-caught chimpanzees with chronic HBV infection identified a unique chimpanzee HBV strain in 11 animals. Nucleotide and derived amino acid analysis of the complete HBV genome and the gene coding for the hepatitis B surface antigen (S gene) identified sequence patterns that could be used to reliably identify chimpanzee HBV. This analysis indicated that chimpanzee HBV is distinct from known human HBV genotypes and is closely related to HBVs previously isolated from a chimpanzee, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans.

Footnotes

↵ ‡ To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: bjr1{at}cdc.gov.
Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. AF222311–AF222323).
Abbreviations:

HBV,

hepatitis B virus;

gnty,

genotype;

HBsAg,

hepatitis B surface antigen;

M,

male;

F,

female;

NIH,

National Institutes of Health