Discovering that hepatitis E virus is associated with sperm in pigs suggests the virus may be both sexually transmitted and linked to male infertility, according to a new study. Hepatitis E (HEV) is the leading cause of the acute viral liver infection in humans worldwide, mostly in developing regions where sanitation is poor. The virus is also endemic in pigs in the United States – though it is present mostly in organs rather than muscle, and is killed when the meat is cooked.
Because HEV has been linked to fatal pregnancy complications and reports of male infertility in the developing world, researchers at The Ohio State University explored its infectivity in pigs, whose reproductive anatomy closely resembles that of humans. After inoculating pigs with HEV, the team found the virus circulated in blood and was shed in feces, meaning that the pigs were infected, but they had no clinical symptoms –asymptomatic cases are common in humans, as well. Results also showed HEV was present on the head of sperm cells, and that these same viral particles could infect human liver cells in culture and begin replicating.
"Our study is the first one demonstrating this association of hepatitis E virus with the sperm cell," said first author Kush Yadav, who completed the work as a PhD student in Ohio State's Center for Food Animal Health. "Our future studies will be directed toward understanding the association between hepatitis E virus and the sperm head more mechanistically, and using an.