THE STUDY ON QUASISPECIES OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS:REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE REGION IN POLYMERASE GENE AS AN EXAMPLE / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

A set of specific primers was synthesized according to DNA sequence of HBV found in China, the reverse transcriptase (RT) region in polymerase gene was amplified by PCR method from the serum of 3 patients with chronic HBV infection, and then the PCR products were subcloned into pGEM Teasy vectors. 13 clones were sequenced. Sequence comparison of the selected clones was made to look for the difference. After being compared, 13 sequences of RT were found different. Besides 2 clones with long sequence deletion, the different rate of RT coding nucleic acid sequences, RT and HBsAg amino acid sequences of the 11 clones is 5 1%, 4 9% and 7 5%, respectively. Many mutation types, including point substitution and deletion mutation, were found in this region. There is quasispecies population and defective HBV genome in patients with chronic HBV infection.