戊型肝炎病毒（hepatitis E virus，HEV）引起的戊型肝炎是全球主要的病毒性肝炎之一。目前HEV还没有稳定的体外细胞培养体系，因此，对于HEV疫苗的研究主要集中在有免疫原性的病毒衣壳重组蛋白上。HEV基因组第2个开放阅读框编码的主要衣壳蛋白在体外可以自发组装成病毒样颗粒，后者在动物和人体内均可诱导高滴度保护性抗体，是理想的预防性疫苗组分。此文对HEV的基因组与分类学、病毒样颗粒及其疫苗的研究现状等做一综述。

 Hepatitis E, caused by hepatitis E virus (HEV), is one type of the predominant viral hepatitis worldwide. No stable in vitro cell culture system for HEV has been established so far, thus most research work is focused on recombinant protein of viral capsid, which can induce immune response to HEV. Open reading frame 2 of HEV can self-assemble into virus-like particles (VLPs) which induce high-titer protective antibodies both in animals and human. Therefore, ORF2 VLP becomes a perfect candidate for prophylactic vaccine. This review discusses mainly three aspects of HEV, namely the genome and systematics, VLP and research status of HEV VLP vaccine.