The hepatitis A virus is of animal origin
The hepatitis A virus – like HIV or Ebola as well – is of likely animal origin. An international team of researchers under the lead of the University of Bonn uncovered the evolutionary origins of the global pathogen. The results currently appear in the renowned journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America” (PNAS).
The hepatitis A virus, which is found worldwide, has previously been considered to be a purely human pathogen which at most is found in isolated cases in non-human primates.The virus can trigger acute liver inflammation. An international team of researchers has now discovered in a large-scale study with nearly 16,000 specimens from small mammals from various continents that the hepatitis A virus – like HIV or Ebola as well – is of likely animal origin. They investigated a total of 15,987 specimens from 209 different species of small mammals: from rodents to shrews and bats to hedgehogs. "We assume that small mammals were important hosts for the preservation and evolution of the viruses", says Prof Jan Felix Drexler from the Institute of Virology at the University of Bonn Medical Centre and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). Drexler has a DZIF professorship for "Virus detection and preparedness".
The scientists' evolutionary investigations may even hint at distant ancestry of the hepatitis A virus in primordial insect viruses. "It is possible that insect viruses infected insect-eating small mammals millions of years ago and that these viruses then developed into the precursors of the hepatitis A virus," says the virologist from the University of Bonn Medical Centre.
Read more in the press release of the University of Bonn
