HEV Replicates In The Female Reproductive System And Leads To Vertical Transmission

Hepatitis E virus(HEV)is a zoonosis pathogen of hepatitis E.HEV infection can cause self-limited light duty hepatitis in the general population while may lead to serious adverse pregnancy outcomes like acute liver failure,premature birth,miscarriage or stillbirth in 25% pregnant women.Till now,the mechanism of HEV's effects on female pregnancy is unclear.This study first built a BALB/c mice model of HEV infection during pregnancy,successfully.HEV was proved to replicate in female reproductive system(uterus and ovary)by RT-qPCR,immunehistochemistry and immunofluorescence methods.By detecting fetal related organizations(placenta,umbilical cord,fetal liver and brain),HEV was found to have vertical transmittion through placenta and caused fetal infection with higher HEV copies number existing in fetal liver and fetal brain tissues.Besides,HEV infection could lead to fetal injury like intrauterine fetal death.This study further investigated the mechanism of fetal injury by HEV infection from the perspective of genetic gene,preliminarily.In this study,the pregnant BALB/c mouse model of HEV infection was successfully constructed,which provided an important animal model for the study of HEV's pathogenic mechanism and HEV's harm to gestation.Using this animal model,we found that the female reproductive system is an important extrahepatic replication site of HEV.HEV could further cause fetal infection and injury through vertical transmission.Meanwhile,the model of the infected pregnant mouse largely simulated the symptoms of HEV clinical infection during pregnancy.In addition,we explored the possible mechanism of the fetal injury by HEV infection in the level of imprinted gene expression,preliminarily.These works provided a new angle of view and help for the research of adverse pregnancy outcomes of HEV infected pregnant women.