Substantial spillover burden of rat hepatitis E virus in humans
The emergence of Rocahepevirus ratti genotype 1 (rat hepatitis E virus; rat HEV) in humans presents an unprecedented threat; however, the risk of rat HEV transmission to humans is not well understood. Here, we report the "Distinguishing Antibody Response Elicitation (DARE)" method, which distinguishes exposure to rat HEV. We use four study sets from China for large-scale population analysis: set 1 (hospital visit) and set 3 (ALT abnormality) from Yunnan province, a biodiversity hotspot, and set 2 (received physical examination) and set 4 (ALT abnormality) from Jiangsu province, a non-hotspot control region. rat HEV exposure risk is significantly higher in Yunnan, with 21.97% (190 of 865) in set 1 and 13.97% (70 of 501) in set 3, compared to 0.75% (9 of 1196) in Jiangsu's set 2. Six spillover infections for rat HEV are identified in set 1, with one case of abnormal ALT. The rat-1d strains carried by rats are closely related to those human infections. Our study reveals the substantial spillover burden posed by rat HEV in biodiversity hotspots and highlights the utility of DARE method for proactive surveillance of public health emergencies.
Authors
- Yue Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0864-8990)
- Siddharth Sridhar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2022-8307)
- Yihan Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4651-9433)
- Liuwei Song
- Yongde Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4602-1563)
- Xia Zang
- Xingcheng Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0322-1330)
- Ying Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2976-3111)
- Shunhua Wen
- Zizheng Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0099-4212)
- Ningshao Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0179-5266)
- Lifeng Wang
- Han‐Chieh Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2638-7883)
- Tianxu Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7973-4025)
- Guanghui Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7015-772X)
- Lin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1555-9985)
- Jun Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6601-9180)
- Zihao Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8221-0751)
- Jiayu Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5398-1151)
- Wenhui Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4083-0901)
- Jingyan Fan
- Donglin Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8413-0202)
- Ting Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4021-6298)
- Mujin Fang
- Xiaoxiang Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7641-9789)
- Jia-Xiang Yin
- Yingbin Wang
Institutions
- Department of Health (CN)
- Xiamen University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Fudan University (CN)
- Thai Nguyen National General Hospital (VN)
- First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University (CN)
- Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center (CN)
- Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CN)
- Yunnan Center for Disease Control And Prevention (CN)
- Dali University (CN)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-04-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59345-6
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Hepatitis Viruses Studies and Epidemiology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 11.90
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Fudan University
- Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province
- University of Hong Kong
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
- Peking University
- Xiamen University
- Dali University
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
- Peking University Health Science Center