The hepatitis E virus also attacks organs other than the liver, the study notes

The hepatitis E virus also attacks organs other than the liver, the study notes

A research team from Bochum and Hanover shows that the hepatitis E virus also attacks organs other than the liver.

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes severe inflammation of the liver. A research team from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany and Twincore, the center for experimental and clinical infection research in Hanover, has now been able to demonstrate for the first time that it can also infect kidney cells and replicate there. Antiviral drugs such as ribavirin are less effective there than in the liver. The results of the study have now been published on June 27, 2025 in the journal Liver International.

Entire life cycle possible in the kidney

Hepatitis E viruses primarily infect liver cells and cause most of the damage to the liver. “However, it was already known that they could go the wrong way and infect other cells such as nerve cells,” says the last author, Dr. André Gömer from the Department of Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum.

The team from Bochum and Hanover has now proven in cell culture that the viruses can also infect kidney cells and multiply with their help. “The entire replication cycle of the virus takes place in kidney cells just as it does in liver cells,” says Gömer.

The infected kidney cells responded less well to treatment with the antiviral drug -ribavirin than the liver cells. “This is probably due to the significantly different metabolic profiles of the two organs,” says Gömer. In the kidney, the virus is therefore relatively insensitive to drug treatment.

It could be that in chronic infections, the kidney acts as a reservoir from which the viruses spread again after supposedly successful treatment. “

Nele Meyer, doctoral student in the research group for translational virology at Twincore

She and the doctor Avista Wahid are the first authors of the study. Such a reservoir could also allow viruses to better adapt to treatment.

Evolution in the organ

The team also conducted a comparative genetic analysis of hepatitis viruses from chronically infected patients using their blood plasma, stool and urine. While viruses are mainly excreted from the liver in stool, those from the kidneys are found in urine. “The viruses found in the different samples differ significantly from each other,” reports Dr. Patrick Behrendt, head of the translational virology group at Twincore and also the last author of the article.

The hepatitis E virus

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the main cause of acute viral hepatitis. After the first documented epidemic outbreak in 1955 to 1956, more than 50 years passed before researchers focused intensively on the topic. Acute infections usually resolve in patients with an intact immune system. In patients with a reduced or suppressed immune system, such as organ transplant recipients or HIV-infected patients, HEV can become chronic. HEV is also particularly dangerous for pregnant women.

financing

The work was supported by the German Center for Infection Research, the Volkswagen Foundation, the German Research Foundation (398066876/GRK 2485/2 and 448974291) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Virbio project, funding code: 01KI2106).

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