Molecular epidemiology and phylogenetic analysis of Hepatitis B virus in a group of migrants in Italy

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Giulio Pisani¹  Silvia Angeletti²  Alba Grifoni³  Massimo Amicosante⁴  Michele Equestre⁵  Maria Chiara Pezzoli⁶  Carmelo Scarcella⁶  Issa El-Hamad⁷  Eleonora Cella⁸  Marta Giovanetti⁸  Alessandra Lo Presti⁸  Massimo Ciccozzi⁹  Elena Tritarelli^1,10  Anna Rita Ciccaglione^1,10  Umbertina Villano^1,10  Roberto Bruni^1,10 

[1] Center for Immunobiologicals Research and Evaluation, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy;Clinical Pathology and Microbiology Laboratory, University hospital Campus Biomedico, Rome, Italy;Department of Biology, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy;Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy;Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy;Department of Infectious Diseases, Spedali Civili General Hospital, Brescia, Italy;Department of Infectious Diseases, Spedali Civili General Hospital, Brescia, Italy;Brescia Local Health Authority, Brescia, Italy;Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-Mediated Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy;Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-Mediated Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy;Clinical Pathology and Microbiology Laboratory, University hospital Campus Biomedico, Rome, Italy;Viral Hepatitis Unit, Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-Mediated Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy;

关键词: HBV;    Phylogeny;    Phylodynamics;    Molecular epidemiology;    Migrants;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12879-015-0994-9

 received in 2015-03-18, accepted in 2015-06-22,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHepatitis B virus infection (HBV) is widespread and it is considered a major health problem worldwide. The global distribution of HBV varies significantly between countries and between regions of the world. Among the many factors contributing to the changing epidemiology of viral hepatitis, the movement of people within and between countries is a potentially important one. In Italy, the number of migrant individuals has been increasing during the past 25 years. HBV genotype D has been found throughout the world, although its highest prevalence is in the Mediterranean area, the Middle East and southern Asia. We describe the molecular epidemiology of HBV in a chronically infected population of migrants (living in Italy), by using the phylogenetic analysis.MethodsHBV-DNA was amplified and sequenced from 43 HBV chronically infected patients.Phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis were performed using both maximum Likelihood and Bayesian methods.Results and conclusionOf the 43 HBV S gene isolates from migrants, 25 (58.1 %) were classified as D genotype.Maximum Likelihood analysis showed an intermixing between Moldavian and foreigners sequences mostly respect to Italian ones. Italian sequences clustered mostly together in a main clade separately from all others. The estimation of the time of the tree’s root gave a mean value of 17 years ago, suggesting the origin of the tree back to 1992 year. The skyline plot showed that the number of infections softly increased until the early 2005s, after which reached a plateau. Comparing phylogenetic data to the migrants date of arrival in Italy, it should be possible that migrants arrived in Italy yet infected from their country of origin. In conclusion, this is the first paper where phylogenetic analysis and genetic evolution has been used to characterize HBV sub genotypes D1 circulation in a selected and homogenous group of migrants coming from a restricted area of Balkans and to approximately define the period of infection besides the migration date.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Villano et al. 2015. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.