Hepatitis B virus genotypes in Mongols and Australian Aborigines.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is spread worldwide. Seven genotypes, A-G, have been described, differing by more than 8% of the genome. In eastern Asia and Oceania genotypes B and C are predominant. However, little is known about genotypes in Mongolia and Australian aborigines. We analysed the preS and S regions of HBV from 9 Mongols and 5 Australian Aborigines. All Mongolian strains were of genotype D and were most similar to Central Asian sequences. All the Australian strains were genetically of serotype ayw3, and could not be reliably classified by the S region analysis, but placed on a separate branch. By preS analysis, they were however clearly of genotype C. The 6-7% nucleotide difference from published Asian genotype C sequences suggests that they diverged from Asian genotype C branch more than 1000 years ago.
Alestig
E
E
Department of Clinical Virology, Göteborg University, Sweden.
Hannoun
C
C
Horal
P
P
Lindh
M
M
D044466:Asian People; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005838:Genotype; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000821:virology; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D008986:Mongolia / Q000453:epidemiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens