Characterization of Japanese swine and human hepatitis E virus isolates of genotype IV with 99 % identity over the entire genome

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Abstract
The full-length genomic sequences were determined of Japanese swine and human hepatitis E virus (HEV) isolates (swJ13-1 and HE-JA1, respectively) with 100 % identity in the partial sequence of open reading frame (ORF) 2 (ORF2, 412 nt). swJ13-1 was isolated from a 4-month-old farm pig born in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2002 and HE-JA1 was recovered from a 55-year-old patient who lived in Hokkaido and who had contracted sporadic acute hepatitis E in 1997. Both isolates consisted of 7240 nt, excluding the poly(A) tail, and contained three ORFs (ORFs 1–3) that encoded proteins of 1707, 674 and 114 aa. The overall nucleotide sequence identity between them was 99·0 % and the deduced amino acid sequence identities of ORFs 1–3 were 99·8, 100 and 100 %, respectively. The high degree of genomic similarity observed between swine and human HEV isolates in a restricted area of Japan further supports the finding that sporadic hepatitis E in Japan is a zoonosis.