A NEW CHINESE ISOLATE OF HEPATITIS-E VIRUS - COMPARISON WITH STRAINS RECOVERED FROM DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS

The full-length cDNA of a new Chinese strain (KS2-87) of Hepatitis E v irus (HEV) has been constructed and sequenced. The 5' noncoding region of KS2-87 is 26 nucleotides in length, which is one nucleotide shorte r than that of HEV (B1) (Burma) and 23 nucleotides longer than that of HEV (Mexico). Comparison of the nucleotide and amino acid sequences o f KS2-87 with all other published HEV sequences showed that KS2-87 was closer to two other Chinese strains (CHT-88, CHT-87) and SAR-55 (Paki stan) than to HEV (B1) and HEV (B2) (Burma) or HEV (Mexico). Compariso ns of partial sequences of genes encoding a nonstructural and a struct ural protein revealed the existence of genetically related groups of H EV within geographical regions, whereas larger nucleotide differences were seen among isolates that were more geographically and epidemiolog ically distant.