Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

MDPI, Veterinary Sciences, 12(10), p. 668, 2023

DOI: 10.3390/vetsci10120668

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Hepadnavirus Infection in a Cat with Chronic Liver Disease: A Multi-Disciplinary Diagnostic Approach

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

A 3-year-old female stray, shorthair cat, with clinical signs and serum chemistry markers indicative of hepatic disease, was diagnosed with domestic cat hepadnavirus (DCH) infection. Coupling molecular and serological data, the infection was seemingly contextualized into a chronic phase, since IgM anti-core antibodies, a marker of early-stage Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection, were not detected. However, the cat possessed IgG anti-core, a common indicator of chronic HBV infection in human patients and did not show seroconversion to the anti-DCH surface antigen, considered protective during HBV infection and associated with long-term protective immunity. On genome sequencing, the DCH strain showed 98.3% nucleotide identity to strains previously identified in Italy.