[Association of pre-core defective HBV mutant with anti-HBe positive chronic hepatitis].
Precore defective HBV mutant has been suggested to be responsible for the pathogenesis of fulminant hepatitis. This variant is unable to produce HBeAg because of the presence of a novel translational stop codon at the end of the precore region of the genome. We examined the precore region of the HBV nucleotide sequence in 12 Japanese anti-HBe positive chronic hepatitis patients in order to ascertain whether the genome has stop-codon mutation in the precore region. Precore defective HBV mutant was found in most of the examined cases. A few cases had a mixture of strains, wild type and precore defective HBV mutant. The variety of precore genome concerned with the pathogenesis of chronic hepatitis still needs to be clarified.
Karasawa
T
T
First Department of Internal Medicine, Jikei University School of Medicine.
Aizawa
Y
Y
Zeniya
M
M
Toda
G
G
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003062:Codon; D005260:Female; D005814:Genes, Viral; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology*; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation
D003062:Codon; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens