Further research is needed to confirm how common HBV infection is in chickens and whether HBV can be handed from people to chickens and vice versa. Conclusions In conclusion, high prevalence of HBV antigens and antibodies was found in chicken serum and liver samples, indicating HBV infection in chickens. found to be positive for both HBsAg and HBeAg. Further analysis of these samples with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) exposed two morphologic particles with 20 nm and 40 nm in diameter, which were much like small spherical and Danes particles of HBV. The viral DNA sequence recognized in two of the chicken livers shared 92.2% of one known HBV strain and 97.9% nucleotide sequence of another HBV strain. Our results showed the living of HBV in chickens. This would present a significant risk to people who work with live chickens or chicken products if HBV found in chicken could be confirmed to be the same as human HBV. Background Hepatitis B disease (HBV) is one of the most important human being pathogens. More than 350 million people worldwide are persistently infected with HBV and are at risk of developing chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma [1]. While vertical transmission of HBV from mother to neonate always results in chronic hepatitis, illness during adulthood results in lifelong protecting immunity [2]. Although actions such as vaccination have been taken for years, the prevalence of HBV has not been controlled efficiently, and it is still a major danger to human being health. The HBV genome is definitely a relaxed circular DNA of ~ 3 200 nucleotides and consists of full length of the bad strand and a shorter positive strand. Serologic markers of hepatitis B disease illness include both viral antigens (surface antigen, HBsAg, and e antigen, HBeAg) and antibodies (anti-HBs, anti-HBc, anti-HBe). HBsAg is AMD3100 (Plerixafor) the most regularly used to display for the presence of HBV illness. The presence of HBeAg inside AMD3100 (Plerixafor) a host’s serum is definitely associated with much higher rates of viral replication and enhanced infectivity [3]. Detection of all the serologic markers is definitely meaningful for medical analysis of HBV in human Rabbit Polyclonal to BTLA being. Illness of HBV has already been documented in non-human primates (NHPs)[4] such as chimpanzees [5,6] and gorillas [7,8] in sub-Saharan Africa; gibbons and orangutans in South-East Africa [7,9]. Epidemiological studies have shown a high prevalence of HBV illness in great apes, that is similar to human population in Gabon and Congo [7]. AMD3100 (Plerixafor) Furthermore, our team has found the living of HBV in swine [10], indicating the possibility of HBV illness in food animals. Although there is currently no evidence that human population have been or are infected with food animal-associated HBV variants, living of HBV in food animals deserves higher attention from experts and the general public. Chickens are widely consumed by people all over the world, but it is not obvious whether chickens possess HBV illness. The objective of this project was to determine if HBV is present in chickens. Results High percentages of the serum samples were found to be positive for HBsAg (28.68%, 37/129), anti-HBs (53.49%, 69/129) and anti-HBc (17.05%, 22/129), whereas HBeAg and anti-HBe was recognized only in 4.65% (6/129) and 9.3% (12/129) of the samples respectivel. Only three of the 129 serum samples were positive for both HBsAg and HBeAg (Table ?(Table11). Table 1 Detection of HBV Markers in Chicken Serum Samples thead th rowspan=”1″ colspan=”1″ /th th align=”center” rowspan=”1″ colspan=”1″ Samples (n) /th th align=”center” rowspan=”1″ colspan=”1″ Positive Samples (n) /th th align=”center” rowspan=”1″ colspan=”1″ Positive Percentage (%) /th /thead HBsAg1293728.68 hr / anti-HBs1296953.49 hr / anti-HBc1292217.05 hr / HBeAg12964.65 hr / anti-HBe129129.30 hr / HBsAg + HBeAg12932.33 Open in a separate window Further analysis of these serum samples with TEM found that they contained two types of particles, the size and morphology of which were very similar to complete and bare viral particles of HBV (Number ?(Figure1).1). The one with a diameter of 40 nm appeared to be HBV Dane particle; and the other, having a diameter of 20 nm, was much like small spherical particles of HBV in human being serum. Open in a separate window Number 1 Observation of hepatitis B disease like particles in.