First report of equine Pegivirus in South America, Brazil

• Published in: Acta tropica Vol. 152; pp. 56 - 59
• Main Authors: de Souza, Alex Junior Souza, Malheiros, Andreza Pinheiro, de Sousa, Erika Rocha Paraense, Moreira, Alba Cristina Negrão, Silva, Andrea Lima, das Chagas, André Antônio Corrêa, Freitas, Pedro Eduardo Bonfim, Gemaque, Bernard Salame, de Figueiredo, Heriberto Ferreira, de Sá, Lilian Rose Marques, dos Santos, Paloma Daguer Ewerton, Soares, Manoel do Carmo Pereira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-12-2015
• Subjects: Animals; Base Sequence; Blood - virology; Brazil - epidemiology; Female; Flaviviridae - genetics; Flaviviridae - isolation & purification; Flaviviridae Infections - epidemiology; Flaviviridae Infections - veterinary; GBV; Horse Diseases - virology; Horses; Humans; Pegivirus; Phylogeny; Prevalence; Brazil; Horses; GBV; Pegivirus
• ISSN: 0001-706X; 1873-6254
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2015.08.014

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•First description of Equine Pegivirus infection in South America.•Equine Pegivirus is within Flaviviridae family and has poorly understood epidemiology, geographic dispersion, natural transmission and pathogenicity.•This isolate may point to new perspectives about the spread and evolution of Pegivirus infection in new world domestic mammals.
The human Pegivirus (HPgV, also known as GBV-C virus or hepatitis G virus) is a lymphotropic RNA-virus phylogenetically related to the Hepatitis C virus, which infects approximately 5% of the world’s human population. Recently, two novel, presumably hepatotropic, pegiviruses, designated as equine Pegivirus (EPgV) and Theiler’s Disease Associated Virus (TDAV), were discovered in horses with clinical and laboratory evidence of hepatic disease. To verify the occurrence of pegiviruses infection in horses from Pará State, northern Brazil, serum samples from 114 horses located in four cities (Acará, Belém, Dom Eliseu and Ananindeua) were submitted for the molecular analysis of EPgV by nested RT-PCR. The results of nucleotide sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of EPgV NS3 and NS5B genomic regions confirmed one positive sample among 114 tested samples (1/114; 0.8%). No evidence of TDAV infection was found, but despite the low prevalence and unknown clinical significance among the studied population, these results represent the first molecular detection of EPgV in horses in South America.