Prevalence and Genomic Sequence Analysis of Domestic Cat Hepadnavirus in the United States.

ABSTRACT: Hepadnaviruses are partially double-stranded DNA viruses that infect a variety of species. The prototypical virus in this family is the human hepatitis B virus, which chronically infects approximately 400 million people worldwide and is a risk factor for progressive liver disease and liver cancer. The first hepadnavirus isolated from carnivores was a domestic cat hepadnavirus (DCH), initially identified in Australia and subsequently detected in cats in Europe and Asia. As with all characterized hepadnaviruses so far, DCH infection has been associated with hepatic disease in its host. Prevalence of this infection in the United States has not been explored broadly. Thus, we utilized conventional and quantitative PCR to screen several populations of domestic cats to estimate DCH prevalence in

SUBMITTER: Stone C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9607532 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature