Hepatitis B virus with mutations in the core promoter for an e antigen-negative phenotype in carriers with antibody to e antigen.

摘要: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA clones were propagated from 57 carriers with antibody to hepatitis e antigen (HBeAg) and sequenced within nucleotides (nt) 1685 1926 including the core promoter (nt 1742 1849) pre-C region 1814 1900). Mutations in or those region, both, detected 328 (97.9%) of 335 them. Five infected HBV mutants mutations alone, while 20 only abort translation HBeAg precursor; remaining 32 both region. Some exclusively had high titers, comparable wild-type HBV, thereby indicating that such would not affect transcription pregenome extensively. Two point promoter, A T at nt 1762 G 1764, most prevalent. The other included a mutation either two their deletion. All these involved TTAAA sequence 1758 1762) 28 bp upstream initiation site for shorter mRNAs 1790 +/- 1). ATAAATT 1789 1795) 23 RNA 1818), however, remained intact all clones. unaccompanied by mutations, prevailed replaced as they seroconverted corresponding antibody. These results indicate an HBeAg- phenotype be generated which might mRNA but do seriously RNA.