The characterization of serum hepatitis B virus full-length genome in chronic severe hepatitis B patients and its clinical significance / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To characterize serum hepatitis B virus(HBV)full-length genome quasispecies and to investigate its ralationship with severe exacerbation of chronic hepatitis B(CHB).Methods HBV full-length genome was amplified and cloned from four treatment naive CHB patients and four treatment naive CSHB patients.Fourteen to sixteen clones per sample were selected,sequenced and analyzed by bioinformatics software.The measurement data was compared by independent-samples t test and count data was analyzed by x2 test. Results Totally 120 HBV fulllength genome sequences were obtained.All the patients had either genotype B or C virus monoinfection.One hundred percent clones(60/60)from CSHB patients showed mutations including G1896A,A1762T/G1764A(one patient even carried A1762T/G1764A/C1766T mutations),T1753C/G and start codon mutations in preS2,preS1,which were more common than those from CHB patients(46/60,76.7%;x2=15.85,P<0.01).The quasispecies complexity and diversity were higher in CSHB patients than CHB patients within full-length genome,S,X,P genes and reverse transcriptase region,but lower within C gene at both nucleotide and amino acid levels.But the difference were not statistically significant in all regions.Conclusion The mutation frequency and quasispeeies heterogeneity in HBV genome are higher in CSHB patients than in CHB patients,which may play a role in the severe exacerbation of CHB and needs further investigation in large scale studies.