Occurrence and molecular characterization of human pegivirus-1 (HPgV-1) viremia in healthy volunteer blood donors from Northern Portugal.

Human pegivirus-1 (HPgV-1) is a member of the Flaviviridae family and the Pegivirus genus. Despite having been discovered 25 years ago, there is still much to know regarding HPgV-1 clinical impact, as this virus is currently not associated with any pathology. Yet, HPgV-1 prevalence and molecular characterization are still unknown in many countries, including Portugal. To fill in this knowledge gap, this study aimed to determine the occurrence and molecular characterization of HPgV-1 in a group of healthy blood donors from the north of Portugal. Blood samples from 465 Portuguese blood donors were collected from a major Hospital Center in the north of Portugal. RNA was extracted and an initial nested RT-PCR was performed targeting the conserved 5'-untranslated region  region of the HPgV-1 genome. A second nested RT-PCR targeting the E2 region was performed for genotyping. Only one sample tested positive for HPgV-1 RNA, resulting in a prevalence of approximately 0.22%. Phylogenetic analyses confirmed the characterization as genotype 2, the most prevalent in Europe.
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