Seasonal Variability of Human Enteric Viruses Discovered in Food Production Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) Farmed in the Central Adriatic Sea (Italy).

Abstract

Among the different naked and quasi-enveloped viruses, the hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis E virus (HEV), and norovirus genogroups I and II (NoV GI and NoV GII) are considered the main microbiological noxae involved in foodborne outbreaks. Mussels can harbor pathogens in their tissues. In addition to epidemiological attention, marine water temperature changes are considered a crucial variable influencing viral loads. This study aimed to biomolecularly screen 1775 farmed mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) for viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequence detection (belonging to the HAV, HEV, and NoV GI and GII genogroups) in three different sampling periods (spring, summer, and winter), with the mussels collected from three farms located in the Central Adriatic Sea (Italy). The results showed that 10.42% of the screened animals harbored at least one type of pathogen RNA, more specifically, 5.35% HEV, 4.51% NoV GI, and 0.56% HAV. The highest genetic equivalent (GE) amounts were majorly observed in the winter season (NoV GI 1.0 × 10³ GE/g and HEV 1.0 × 10² GE/g), resulting in statistical differences when compared to summer and spring (p-value: <0.001). The original data obtained serve to bring scientific attention to the possible influence of environmental and climatic aspects on viral loads, highlighting the crucial role played by biomolecular assays as preventive medicine tools.