SEQUENCE AND GENE STRUCTURE OF THE HEPATITIS-E VIRUS ISOLATED FROM MYANMAR

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a causative agent of enterically transmitte d non-A, non-B hepatitis. Hepatitis E occurs not only in sporadic form s but also in epidemic outbreaks in the developing world. We have reve aled the nucleotide and predicted amino acid sequences of full cDNA of HEV isolated from sporadic hepatitis E of Myanmar. The genome is 7194 nucleotides long, followed by a poly(A) tail, and has three open read ing frames. The nonstructural gene is located in the 5' terminus, whil e the structural gene is situated in the 3' terminus. Our HEV strain h as 98.5% nucleic acid identity with the HEV strain cloned by workers a t Genelabs Incorporated from Myanmar. The difference is point nucleoti de substitutions. There is a high degree of nucleotide relatedness amo ng HEVs isolated from the same geographical location.