PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Neda Nasheri
AU  - Tanushka Doctor
AU  - Angela Chen
AU  - Jennifer Harlow
AU  - Alex Gill
TI  - Evaluation of High-Pressure Processing in Inactivation of the Hepatitis E Virus
AID  - 10.1101/764407
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 764407
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/09/10/764407.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/09/10/764407.full
AB  - Hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes acute hepatitis with approximately 20 million cases per year globally. While HEV is endemic in certain regions of Asia, Africa and South America, it is considered an emerging foodborne pathogen in developed countries. Based on genetic diversity, HEV is classified into different genotypes, with genotype 3 (HEV-3) being most prevalent in Europe and North America. The transmission of HEV-3 has been shown to be zoonotic and mainly associated with the consumption of raw or undercooked pork products. Herein, we investigated the efficacy of high-pressure processing (HPP) in the inactivation of HEV-3 using a cell culture system. HPP has been indicated as a promising nonthermal pathogen inactivation strategy for treatment of certain high-risk food commodities, without any noticeable changes in their nature. For this purpose, we treated HEV-3 in media as well as in artificially inoculated pork pâté, with different conditions of HPP: 400 MPa for 1 and 5 minutes, as well as 600 MPa for 1 and 5 minutes, at ambient temperature. In general, we observed approximately a 2-log reduction in HEV load by HPP treatments in media; however, similar treatment in the pork pâté resulted in a much lower reduction in viral load. Therefore, the efficacy of HPP treatment in the inactivation of HEV-3 is matrix-dependent.Importance HEV is an emerging foodborne pathogen in industrialized countries, and its transmission is associated with the consumption of contaminated undercooked pork product. In this work, we employed an infectivity assay to investigate the potential of high-pressure in inactivation of HEV in media and ready-to-eat pork pâté. We demonstrated that the effect of HPP on inactivation of HEV depends on the surrounding matrix.