Vaccine Development Against Zoonotic Hepatitis E Virus: Open Questions and Remaining Challenges

Overview

Journal Front Microbiol

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2018 Mar 10

PMID 29520257

Citations 12

Authors

Yuchen Nan

Chunyan Wu

Qin Zhao

Yani Sun

Yan-Jin Zhang

En-Min Zhou

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a fecal-orally transmitted foodborne viral pathogen that causes acute hepatitis in humans and is responsible for hepatitis E outbreaks worldwide. Since the discovery of HEV as a zoonotic agent, this virus has been isolated from a variety of hosts with an ever-expanding host range. Recently, a subunit HEV vaccine developed for the prevention of human disease was approved in China, but is not yet available to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, notable progress and knowledge has been made and revealed in recent years to better understand HEV biology and infection, including discoveries of quasi-enveloped HEV virions and of a new function of the HEV-ORF3 product. However, the impact of these new findings on the development of a protective vaccine against zoonotic HEV infection requires further discussion. In this review, hallmark characteristics of HEV zoonosis, the history of HEV vaccine development, and recent discoveries in HEV virology are described. Moreover, special attention is focused on quasi-enveloped HEV virions and the potential role of the HEV-ORF3 product as antibody-neutralization target on the surface of quasi-enveloped HEV virions to provide new insights for the future development of improved vaccines against zoonotic HEV infection.

Citing Articles

Trends and projections of Hepatitis A incidence in eastern China from 2007 to 2021: an age-period-cohort analysis.

Peng H, Wang Y, Wei S, Kang W, Zhang X, Cheng X Front Public Health. 2024; 12:1476748.

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Development and Application of a Nanobody-Based Competitive ELISA for Detecting Antibodies against Hepatitis E Virus from Humans and Domestic Animals.

Chen Y, Zhang M, Chen T, Wang J, Zhao Q, Zhou E Microbiol Spectr. 2023; 11(4):e0360722.

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Prediction of promiscuous epitopes in ORF2 of Hepatitis E virus: an approach.

Samavia N, Fahed P, Yasir W, Tasneem A, Syeda N Afr Health Sci. 2023; 22(3):626-639.

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Identification of two novel neutralizing nanobodies against swine hepatitis E virus.

Chen Y, Wang X, Zhang M, Li J, Gao X, Nan Y Front Microbiol. 2022; 13:1048180.

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Hepatitis E genotype 3 genome: A comprehensive analysis of entropy, motif conservation, relevant mutations, and clade-associated polymorphisms.

Munoz-Chimeno M, Rodriguez-Paredes V, Garcia-Lugo M, Avellon A Front Microbiol. 2022; 13:1011662.

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