Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major causative agent of enterically transmitted non-A, non-B hepatitis. Outbreaks of HEV infection have occurred in many developing countries since the first known HEV outbreak in 1995 in New Delhi, India. HEV is an especially serious problem in these countries because of a high fatality rate among pregnant women [1]. The diagnosis of Hepatitis E was previously made by serologic exclusion of other cases of acute viral hepatitis. The cloning and sequencing of the HEV genome have led to the development of prototype immunoassays for the serologic detection of HEV infection [2]. Using the sequence of the HEV genome of Chinese strain containing three open readingframes (ORFs), three antigenic peptides have been derived from HEV protein of Chinese strain, two in structural protein components which encode by ORF2 and one in unknown function protein which encodes by ORF3 [3,4]. These three peptides were synthesized and used successfully for the analysis of serum samples of HEV infected patients.
展开▼
