Evidence for Novel Hepaciviruses in Rodents

Drexler, Jan Felix; Corman, Victor Max; Müller, Marcel Alexander; Lukashev, Alexander N.; Gmyl, Anatoly; Coutard, Bruno; Adam, Alexander; Ritz, Daniel; Leijten, Lonneke M.; van Riel, Debby; Kallies, Rene; Klose, Stefan M.; Gloza-Rausch, Florian; Binger, Tabea; Annan, Augustina; Adu-Sarkodie, Yaw; Oppong, Samuel; Bourgarel, Mathieu; Rupp, Daniel; Hoffmann, Bernd; Schlegel, Mathias; Kümmerer, Beate M.; Krüger, Detlev H.; Schmidt-Chanasit, Jonas; Setién, Alvaro Aguilar; Cottontail, Veronika M.; Hemachudha, Thiravat; Wacharapluesadee, Supaporn; Osterrieder, Klaus; Bartenschlager, Ralf; Matthee, Sonja; Beer, Martin; Kuiken, Thijs; Reusken, Chantal; Leroy, Eric M.; Ulrich, Rainer G.; Drosten, Christian

Because of previous reports of canine/equine hepaciviruses, all RT-PCR assays used in this study were also applied on specimens from horses, cats and dogs. No HCV-related sequences were found in any of the 858 canine or feline specimens. In seven of 210 horse sera (3.3%), sequences closely related to those equine hepaciviruses described previously from the US and New Zealand [24] were detected (9.5-15.0% exchanges in the 978 nucleotide NS3 gene fragment). Most of those nucleotide differences represented synonymous mutations, resulting in low amino acid distances of 0-1.2%. The novel hepaciviruses from German horses clustered phylogenetically with the previously described equine viruses ( Figure 3A ).