Development of a molecular method to identify hepatitis E virus in water.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes an infectious form of hepatitis associated with contaminated water. By analyzing the sequence of several HEV isolates, a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction method was developed and optimized that should be able to identify all of the known HEV strains. When tested under laboratory conditions, this method was able to detect low levels of five diverse HEV variants. In addition, internal controls were constructed so that any PCR inhibition could be detected. Finally, virus-spiked environmental water samples were analyzed successfully with these assays.