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278 small mammals (rodents, shrews, and carnivore), which comprised three orders, four families, and seven species, were captured by mouse traps in Luxi city and Lijiang city, Yunnan province, China, from September 2014 to November 2015 (Table 1). All animals live-trapped were anaesthetized to minimize suffering. Different tissues (liver, heart, intestine, spleen, kidney, and lung) were collected separately and used for analysing virus tissue tropism. Samples were transported by nitrogen canister and stored at -80 ℃ until thawed for RNA extraction. The animal species were firstly identified by trained field biologists and then confirmed by DNA sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome (CytB) gene following previously described methods (Ge et al. 2013; Wang et al. 2017b). RNA was extracted from tissue using the High Pure Viral RNA Kit (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) following the manufacturer's instructions, and cDNA was synthesized using Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus (M-MLV) Reverse Transcriptase (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). The extracted RNA was eluted, aliquoted and stored at -80 ℃.
Table 1. Detection of orthohepevirus in small mammals from Yunnan province, China between 2014 and 2015
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The extracted RNA was tested by broad-spectrum heminested reverse-transcription (RT)-PCR using degenerate primers based on the conserved domain of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)-encoding gene of viruses within the genus Orthohepevirus. PCR products comprised 291 nucleotides (nt) (Drexler et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2017b). The amplicons underwent gel purification with MinElute Gel Extraction Kit (Qiagen, Hilden; Germany) and they were sequenced with both forward and reverse primers using the 3100 Sequencer (ABI, Waltham, MA, USA) or cloned using the pGEM-T Easy vector system (Promega, Madison, WI, US) for sequencing if the direct sequencing failed.
Based on the sequences obtained in this study, we designed primers and probes that specifically targeted the novel rodent orthohepeviruses detected in China. Probes were labelled at the 5' end with 6-carboxyfluorescein (6-FAM) and at the 3' end with Black Hole Quencher 1 (BHQ1) (Supplementary Table S1). The standard curves of the template RNA were constructed as previously described (Wang et al. 2017b; Yang et al. 2017). Samples were characterized by a well-defined exponential fluorescence curve that crossed the cycle threshold (Ct) within 36 cycles. Specimens with a Ct > 36 were repeated to exclude operational faults. The viral genome copy number was calculated in each sample using the standard curves of the template RNA. Virus loads of 4 representative orthohepevirus-positive specimens (RdHEVAc18, RdHEVAc53, RdHEVAc55, and RdHEVAc70) of different tissues (liver, heart, intestine, spleen, kidney, and lung) were measured.
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The complete genomic sequences of four rodent orthohepevirus strains were amplified by PCR using degenerate and strain-specific primers (Supplementary Table S1) (Drexler et al. 2012). Genome ends were amplified by using 5'/3'-Full rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) kit (Clontech, Takara Bio, USA). PCR products were gel purified with a MinElute Gel Extraction Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and sequenced with both forward and reverse primers using a 3100 Sequencer (ABI, Waltham, MA, USA). The sequencing chromatograms were inspected carefully for overlapping multicolour peaks, which are an indicator of sequence heterogeneity. The PCR products were cloned using the pGEM-T Easy Vector System (Promega, Germany) and at least three clones for each PCR fragment were sequenced to obtain a consensus sequence.
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Sequence analysis and genome assembly were carried out with Geneious version 10.0.5 (Biomatters Limited, Auckland, New Zealand) as previously described (Wang et al. 2017a; b). Pairwise distances of complete genome nt and concatenated ORF1/ORF2 aa sequences were analysed using SSE as recommended by ICTV Hepeviridae Study Group (Simmonds 2012; Smith et al. 2014). Sequence similarity comparisons were implemented using the BLASTn search engine (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Homology to known protein domains was identified using Motif Scan (http://myhits.isb-sib.ch). To identify possible recombination, bootscanning analyses of full-length sequences were performed in the SimPlot software program, version 3.5.1 with a sliding window size of 200 and a step size of 20 aa increment (Lole et al. 1999; Drexler et al. 2012). All orthohepevirus sequences reported in this study were submitted to GenBank under Accession Numbers: MG019963–MG020021 for orthohepevirus partial RdRp gene sequences and MG020022–MG020025 for orthohepevirus full-length genome sequences.
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The preliminary sequence alignment and editing were performed using MAFFT (Katoh et al. 2002). Phylogenetic reconstructions were performed using MEGA version 7 with 1000 bootstrap replicates (Kumar et al. 2016). The neighbour-joining trees of p-distances among aligned partial RdRp-coding gene sequences comprised 291 nt corresponding to positions 4300–4590 within Orthohepevirus A reference strain (GenBank Accession No. M73218) and aligned complete genome sequences of the newly detected rodent orthohepeviruses were built, respectively. The maximum-likelihood trees were reconstructed from aa sequences for ORF1, ORF2, ORF3, and putative ORF4-encoding proteins respectively, using the Jones–Taylor– Thornton model with frequencies, and gamma distribution with invariant sites according to the previous study (Smith et al. 2014). The reference HEV strains within the family Hepeviridae and complete genome sequences derived from rat and ferret within the species Orthohepevirus C were used for phylogenetic analyses. The branches are labelled with the strain designation, the host species, and the GenBank accession number. The classification of the respective species or genotypes is indicated on the right.
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GraphPad Prism Software version 7.03 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA) was used for data analysis using a Student t test. All results were presented as mean ± standard errors of the means (SEM). P values of less than 0.05 (single asterisks in figures) were considered statistically significant; whereas P values less than 0.01 (double asterisks) and 0.001 (triple asterisks) were considered highly significant.
Sampling and RNA Extraction
Orthohepevirus Detection and Quantification
Full-Length Genomic Sequencing
Sequence Analysis
Phylogenetic Analysis
Statistical Analysis
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A total of 278 small mammals, belonging to three orders, four families, and seven species, were captured between 2014 and 2015 from two geographical locations: Lijiang city and Luxi city in Yunnan province, China. Blood and tissue samples harvested from these animals were examined for the presence and prevalence of orthohepevirus using broad-spectrum hemi-nested RT-PCR as previously described (Drexler et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2017b). As illustrated in Table 1, 63 samples produced fragments of the expected size and were confirmed to be positive for orthohepevirus RNA by direct sequencing or clone sequencing. The orthohepevirus-positive samples originated from two species: Chevrier's field mouse (Apodemus chevrieri) belonging to the family Muridae from Lijiang city and Père David's vole (Eothenomys melanogaster) belonging to the family Cricetidae from Luxi city, with the infection rates of 29.20% (59/202) and 7.27% (4/55), respectively (Table 1). Based on 291 nt of partial RdRpencoding gene, the sequences of the samples had nt identity of 73%–84% with Orthohepevirus C strains. The 59 orthohepevirus strains from Chevrier's field mouse from Lijiang city reflected remarkable diversity within the group (71%–99% nt identity). Above all, 56 strains had the highest nt identity of 74% to ferret HEV strain F63 (GenBank Accession No. LC177792) and three strains had the highest nt identity of 86% to rat HEV strain rat/Mu09/ 0434/DEU/2010 (GenBank Accession No. JN167538). The four orthohepevirus strains from Père David's vole from Luxi city shared nt identity of 77%–99% within the group and had the highest nt identity of 72% to kestrel HEV strain kestrel/MR16/2014/HUN (GenBank Accession No. KU670941). While other small mammal samples, including Rattus tanezumi, Mus caroli, and Eothenomys chinensis (order: Rodentia), Anourosorex squamipes (order: Soricomorpha), and Mustela sibirica (order: Carnivora) were negative for orthohepevirus RNA detection (Table 1).
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Since complete genome sequences are required for new orthohepevirus assignment (Smith et al. 2014, 2016), and in order to further characterize the novel orthohepevirus strains from the different wild rodent samples, we generated four full-length genome sequences from selected samples, two each from Chevrier's field mouse (designated RdHEVAc: RdHEVAc14 and RdHEVAc86) and Père David's vole (designated RdHEVEm: RdHEVEm40 and RdHEVEm67). The lengths of the whole-genome sequences were 6967 nt for RdHEVAc14; 6966 nt for RdHEVAc86; 6961 nt for RdHEVEm40; and 6964 nt for RdHEVEm67, respectively, excluding the poly(A)-tail. The G + C contents of RdHEVAc14 and RdHEVAc86 were 55.0 and 54.7%, but only 50.5 and 50.3% for RdHEVEm40 and RdHEVEm67. The genomic features and putative domains of these newly detected rodent orthohepevirus strains were characterized in Table 2. A similar genomic organization including 3 ORFs of the family Hepeviridae was observed for these novel rodent orthohepevirus strains, 4 putative functional domains including Met, X, Hel, and RdRp could be predicted in the ORF1 (Table 2). Surprisingly, the putative ORF4 overlapping ORF1 as postulated to exist in the HEV-C1 and HEV-C2 was found at genomic position 35–553 of RdHEVAc, but was absent in RdHEVEm (Johne et al. 2010b, 2014). No putative ORF5 and ORF6 were observed for these novel strains (Johne et al. 2010b; Raj et al. 2012).
Table 2. Genomic features and putative domains of novel rodent orthohepevirus strains
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Complete genome nt identity between RdHEVAc14 and RdHEVAc86 was 92.3, and 89.8% between RdHEVEm40 and RdHEVEm67. However, RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm were highly divergent with only 56.4%–56.8% nt identity in the genomic sequences. Comparisons of the wholegenome nt sequences and aa sequences of deduced ORFs of newly detected rodent orthohepevirus strains with representative orthohepevirus reference strains are shown in Tables 3 and 4. All the novel rodent orthohepevirus strains in this study had a highest nt identity to the strains within the species Orthohepevirus, HEV-C1 (65.5%) and HEVC2 (62.8%) for RdHEVAc, and HEV-C1 (56.8%) and HEV-C2 (56.1%) for RdHEVEm. Similar results were obtained using the coding regions for comparison: RdHEVAc strains shared higher percentage of aa sequence similarity to HEV-C1 or HEV-C2 than other species and genotypes within the family Hepeviridae, HEV-C1 (ORF1, 68.0%; ORF2, 74%; ORF3, 46.2%; and ORF4, 50.8%) and HEV-C2 (ORF1, 68.6%; ORF2, 71.6%; ORF3, 36.3%; and ORF4, 54.1%). Likewise, identities of three ORFs from RdHEVAc to HEV-C1 (ORF1, 53.4%; ORF2, 62.8%; ORF3, 24.8%; and ORF4, 50.8%) to HEV-C2 (ORF1, 54.3%; ORF2, 58.8%; and ORF3, 26.3%) (Tables 3, 4). Compared to other orthohepevirus strains within the species Orthohepevirus C, the genomic organization of RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm also demonstrated genetic variability. As shown in Fig. 1, HEV-C1 had the two distinct translational frames for ORF1 and ORF2, and ORF3 and ORF4, respectively. However, HEV-C2 and RdHEVAc implemented three different translational frames for ORF1 and ORF3, ORF2, and ORF4, respectively. Importantly, RdHEVEm used three translational frames for ORF1, ORF2, and ORF3, which is the same as for HEV-1 to HEV-3 (Sridhar et al. 2017). Moreover, the overlaps of ORF1, ORF2, and ORF3 for HEV-C1, HEVC2, RdHEVAc, and RdHEVEm vary length and location (Fig. 1). In addition, the 5'-UTR region of RdHEVAc carried a 10 nt motif GCAACCCCCG reported to be uniquely present in the rat HEV strains, yet RdHEVEm lacked this motif despite having a longer 5'-UTR region (Mulyanto et al. 2014).
Table 3. Identities of complete genome and ORFs between RdHEVAC and representative orthohepevirus reference strains
Table 4. Identities of complete genome and ORFs between RdHEVEm and representative orthohepevirus reference strains
Figure 1. Schematic description of the species Orthohepevirus C genomes and viral proteins. Different reading frames are denoted on the right, ORF1 is considered as frame 1. HEV-C1 is relative to the reference strain R63 (GenBank Accession No. GU345042); HEV-C2 is relative to the reference strain FRHEV4 (GenBank Accession No. JN998606). ORF1 encodes the non-structural polyprotein, and putative domains of RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm including methyltransferase (Met), macrodomain (X), RNA helicase (Hel) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) are indicated. ORF2 encodes the capsid protein. ORF3 encodes a small multifunctional protein. The function of particular ORF4 is still unknown (adapted from Sridhar et al. 2017).
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A neighbour-joining tree of pairwise distances among alignments of partial RdRp-coding sequences showed that the detected orthohepevirus strains from the two rodent species in this study were highly diverse within the genus Orthohepevirus (Fig. 2A). Intriguingly, three orthohepevirus sequences derived from Chevrier's field mouse clustered into the HEV-C1 cluster. Conversely, the other 56 orthohepevirus sequences derived from the same species formed a separate group (RdHEVAc) (Fig. 2B). Meanwhile, four orthohepevirus strains derived from Père David's vole formed a separate clade (RdHEVEm) and seemed to be more divergent within the family Hepeviridae. Phylogenetic analysis of the complete genome sequences indicated that the RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm from the order Rodentia formed two independent branches within the clade of the species Orthohepevirus C, which reflected even higher divergence from HEV-C1 (order: Rodentia) than HEV-C2 (order: Carnivora) (Fig. 3A). Similar phylogenetic topologies were observed when the deduced ORF1 and ORF2 were analysed separately (Fig. 3B, C). Although the phylogenetic topologies of ORF3 and ORF4 seemed to be more complex, RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm were remarkably divergent from other assigned species or genotypes within the family Hepeviridae (Fig. 3D, E),
Figure 2. Phylogenetic analysis of partial RdRp gene sequences. Branches supported by > 75% of bootstrap replicates are indicated. The branches are labelled with the strain designation, the host species, location, and the GenBank accession number. The classification of the respective species or genotypes is indicated on the right. Newly detected orthohepevirus sequences in this study are highlighted in bold. A Partial RdRp gene alignment comprising 291 nucleotides corresponding to positions 4300–4590 within the Orthohepevirus A reference strain (GenBank Accession No. M73218). To allow better legibility, RdHEVAc is collapsed. B Expansion of RdHEVAc from A.
Figure 3. Phylogenetic analysis of RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm. Branches supported by > 75% of bootstrap replicates are indicated. The branches are labelled with the strain designation, the host species, location, and the GenBank accession number. The classification of the respective species or genotypes is indicated on the right. RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm are highlighted in bold. A Complete genome nucleotide sequences. B Amino acid sequences of ORF1-encoded proteins. C Amino acid sequences of ORF2-encoded proteins. D Amino acid sequences of ORF3-encoded proteins. E Amino acid sequences of ORF4-encoded proteins.
The aa identity plot from bootscan analyses with Simplot V3.5 (Lole et al. 1999) demonstrated that the novel rodent orthohepevirus strains had no evidence of recombination between ORF1- and ORF2-encoded aa sequences compared to reference strains of Orthohepevirus A to Orthohepevirus D (Supplementary Figure S1). Pairwise distances of complete genome nt and concatenated ORF1/ORF2 aa sequences were analysed using SSE (Simmonds 2012) (Supplementary Table S2). The mean pairwise distance results were indicative that HEV-C1 and HEV-C2 differed from each other by a distance of 0.311 (nt) or 0.229 (aa). However, the pairwise distances between RdHEVAc and HEV-C1 was 0.340 (nt) or 0.298 (aa), and between RdHEVAc and HEV-C2 was 0.351 (nt) or 0.286 (aa). Similarly, the pairwise distance between RdHEVEm and HEV-C1 was 0.405 (nt) or 0.411 (aa), and between RdHEVEm and HEV-C2 was 0.409 (nt) or 0.412 (aa). Lastly, the pairwise distance between RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm was 0.405 (nt) or 0.416 (aa). Thus, the divergences between RdHEVAc, RdHEVEm, HEV-C1 and HEV-C2 were comparable to or even higher than the divergence between HEV-C1 and HCV-C2.
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Viral load detected by qPCR in different rodent tissues are presented in Fig. 4. The overall viral titres were significantly higher in liver than in other tissues (heart, intestine, spleen, kidney, and lung) (P < 0.01). Specifically, the viral concentration for two specimens of the liver reached 5.4 × 106 and 1.8 × 106 genomic RNA copies per gram of tissue, respectively. In contrast, viral titres from other tissues were lower than 4.3 × 105 copies per gram. Moreover, several samples from intestine, spleen, heart, kidney, and lung were under detection limit.
Presence and Prevalence of Orthohepeviruses in Rodents
Complete Genome Characterization of Newly Discovered Orthohepeviruses
Comparative Analysis of RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm
Phylogenetic Relationship and Pairwise Distance Analysis of RdHEVAc and RdHEVEm
Quantification of Novel Orthohepeviruses
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Figure S1. Amino acid identity plot. The complete ORF1 and ORF2 were translated, concatenated, and compared to reference strain of Orthohepevirus A to D. The GenBank accession numbers are as follows: M73218, M74506, AF082843, AJ272108, AB573435, AB602441, and KJ496143 for Orthohepevirus A; AY535004 for Orthohepevirus B; GU345042 and JN998606 for Orthohepevirus C; and JQ001749 for Orthohepevirus D. The uncorrected amino acid identity was plotted with a sliding window size of 200 and a step size of 20 amino acids. A schematic representation of concatenated ORF1 and ORF2 is shown at the top. (A) RdHEVAc. (B) RdHEVEm.
Table S1. Oligonucleotides used for orthohepevirus detection, complete genome sequencing, and viral quantification