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

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a causative agent of enterically transmitted non-A, non-B hepatitis. Hepatitis E occurs not only in sporadic forms but also in epidemic outbreaks in the developing world. We have revealed 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 reading frames. The nonstructural gene is located in the 5' terminus, while the structural gene is situated in the 3' terminus. Our HEV strain has 98.5% nucleic acid identity with the HEV strain cloned by workers at Genelabs Incorporated from Myanmar. The difference is point nucleotide substitutions. There is a high degree of nucleotide relatedness among HEVs isolated from the same geographical location.