Relationships between serotypes and genotypes of hepatitis B virus: genetic classification of HBV by use of surface genes.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg), which is encoded by the HBV S gene, is conventionally classified into 4 serological subtypes, adw, adr, ayw and ayr. To determine the relationship between the HBsAg seroreactivity and the nucleotide sequence diversity of the HBV S gene, the nucleotide sequences of S genes for HBV isolates reported so far were aligned with each other. The numbers of nucleotide substitutions were then estimated by the 6-parameter method, and a phylogenetic tree was constructed by the unweighted paired grouping method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) and the neighboring-joining (NJ) method. The phylogenetic trees constructed showed that all isolates were grouped into 4 genotypes (gyw, gdw-1, gdw-2, and gdr). More importantly, the genotypes did not necessarily correspond to the conventional serotypes. In particular, serotype 'adw' can be any of genotypes gdw-1, gdw-2, or gdr. Thus, genotyping by S genes gives more accurate information about genetic variation of HBV.
Ohba
K
K
Second Department of Medicine, Nagoya City University Medical School, Japan.
Mizokami
M
M
Ohno
T
T
Suzuki
K
K
Orito
E
E
Lau
J Y
JY
Ina
Y
Y
Ikeo
K
K
Gojobori
T
T
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D005814:Genes, Viral; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D012703:Serotyping
D005819:Genetic Markers; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens