Hepatitis E virus (HEV) has been frequently detected from pork liver and liver products, which can usually cause self-limiting diseases in healthy adults, yet may result in fatality in immunosuppressed groups. Nevertheless, there is so far no standardized method for HEV detection available from pork liver and/or liver products. The present study aimed to optimize the virus extraction method of HEV from raw pork liver, which is often consumed in Asia undercooked to avoid a grainy texture. By comparing different sample preparation protocols and by applying the selected protocol to 60 samples collected from Singapore retail markets, we demonstrated that homogenization of 0.25 g raw pork liver with FastPrep™ Lysing Matrix Y containing yttria-stabilized zircondium oxide beads in 2 ml tubes and with harsh mechanical force at 6 ms⁻¹, 40 s/cycle, for 5 cycles with 300 s pause time after each cycle is promising in both releasing the potentially intracellular viruses and resulting in satisfactory virus recovery rates (> 1%). A high prevalence (52%) of HEV genome was detected by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) from the 60 samples collected from Singapore retail markets imported from Indonesia, Australia and Malaysia. However, RNase treatment decreased the HEV prevalence to 33.3%, and all of the 20 positive samples were with high RT-qPCR Ct values above 35, suggesting that the positive RT-qPCR signals maybe largely due to the inactive viruses and/or exposed HEV RNA traces in raw pork liver products. Therefore, conscious care should be taken when interpreting molecular detection results of viruses from food samples to be correlated with public health risks.

戊型肝炎病毒 (HEV) 经常从猪肝和肝脏制品中检测到，这通常会导致健康成人发生自限性疾病，但可能导致免疫抑制人群死亡。然而，到目前为止，还没有可从猪肝和/或肝制品中检测 HEV 的标准化方法。本研究旨在优化从生猪肝中提取 HEV 病毒的方法，生猪肝在亚洲经常食用，未煮熟以避免出现颗粒状质地。通过比较不同的样品制备方案并将所选方案应用于从新加坡零售市场收集的 60 个样品，我们证明了使用 FastPrep™ Lysing Matrix Y 对 0.25 g 生猪肝进行均质化，其中 FastPrep™ Lysing Matrix Y 包含在 2 ml 试管中的氧化钇稳定氧化锆珠，并与6 ms 时的苛刻机械力⁻¹, 40 s/cycle, 5 个循环，每个循环后有 300 s 的暂停时间，有希望释放潜在的细胞内病毒，并获得令人满意的病毒回收率 (> 1%)。通过逆转录-定量聚合酶链反应 (RT-qPCR) 从从印度尼西亚、澳大利亚和马来西亚进口的新加坡零售市场收集的 60 个样本中检测到 HEV 基因组的高流行率 (52%)。然而，RNase 处理将 HEV 流行率降低至 33.3%，所有 20 个阳性样本的 RT-qPCR Ct 值均高于 35，这表明阳性 RT-qPCR 信号可能主要是由于非活性病毒和/或暴露的 HEV生猪肝产品中的 RNA 痕迹。所以，