| Title: |
Sequence Variations of Full-Length Hepatitis B Virus Genomes in Chinese Patients with HBsAg-Negative Hepatitis B Infection |
| Authors: |
Huang, FY; Wong, DKH; Seto, WKW; Zhang, AY; Lee, CK; Lin, CK; Fung, JYY; Lai, CL; Yuen, RMF |
| Publication Year: |
2014 |
| Collection: |
University of Hong Kong: HKU Scholars Hub |
| Description: |
BACKGROUND: The underlying mechanism of HBsAg-negative hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is notoriously difficult to elucidate because of the extremely low DNA levels which define the condition. We used a highly efficient amplification method to overcome this obstacle and achieved our aim which was to identify specific mutations or sequence variations associated with this entity. METHODS: A total of 185 sera and 60 liver biopsies from HBsAg-negative, HBV DNA-positive subjects or known chronic hepatitis B (CHB) subjects with HBsAg seroclearance were amplified by rolling circle amplification followed by full-length HBV genome sequencing. Eleven HBsAg-positive CHB subjects were included as controls. The effects of pivotal mutations identified on regulatory regions on promoter activities were analyzed. RESULTS: 22 and 11 full-length HBV genomes were amplified from HBsAg-negative and control subjects respectively. HBV genotype C was the dominant strain. A higher mutation frequency was observed in HBsAg-negative subjects than controls, irrespective of genotype. The nucleotide diversity over the entire HBV genome was significantly higher in HBsAg-negative subjects compared with controls (p = 0.008) and compared with 49 reference sequences from CHB patients (p = 0.025). In addition, HBsAg-negative subjects had significantly higher amino acid substitutions in the four viral genes than controls (all p |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
PLoS ONE; PLoS One, 2014, v. 9 n. 6, p. e99028; e99028; 229437; WOS:000336841400088; https://hub.hku.hk/handle/10722/198049 |
| DOI: |
10.1371/journal.pone.0099028 |
| Availability: |
https://hub.hku.hk/handle/10722/198049; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099028 |
| Rights: |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.90AA29F0 |
| Database: |
BASE |