TY - JOUR T1 - Experimental infection of rabbits with genotype 3 hepatitis E virus produced both chronicity and kidney injury JF - Gut JO - Gut SP - 561 LP - 562 DO - 10.1136/gutjnl-2016-312023 VL - 66 IS - 3 AU - Lin Wang AU - Junke Xia AU - Ling Wang AU - Youchun Wang Y1 - 2017/03/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/66/3/561.abstract N2 - Dear Editor,We read with great interest the elegant work of Sayed et al,1 which established a mouse model for chronic hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections. The study showed that mice with humanised livers could be infected with both HEV-1 and HEV-3 and develop a chronic viral infection. The establishment of this model meets the urgent need for a research animal model to study chronic hepatitis E infection as increasing cases of such infections have been reported in immunocompromised patients.2 We have recently reported on a chronic hepatitis E case caused by HEV-4 in a woman with nephritic syndrome.3 HEV RNA and antigen were detected in the patient's urine and HEV RNA-positive urine successfully induced infection in Cynomolgus monkeys.3 We agree with the claim made by Sayed et al1 that their model may allow the unravelling of the potential relationship between HEV infection and kidney disease. However, this will require … ER -