title: Hepatitis delta virus infection in chronically HBV-infected patients from northern Poland.
abstract: The objective of this study was to estimate the presence of hepatitis delta virus RNA in chronically HBV-infected patients from northern Poland. Three out of 63 studied samples (4.8%) were positive in a qualitative test for total antibodies to HDV antigen. Five samples (7.9%) turned out to be HDV-RNA-positive by RT-PCR, four of them were sequenced in the region of L-HDAg, and phylogenetic analysis was performed. All four examined samples belonged to genotype I. Two RNA-positive/anti-HD-negative samples possessed a few uncommon nucleotide substitution sites within the L-HDAg sequence, which could suggest unique variants in the Polish population of HDV-infected patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland. bielawsk@biotech.univ.gda.pl
authors.forename: K P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Bielawski
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zietkowski
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Charmuszko
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sikorska
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Stalke
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications* / Q000821:virology; D003699:Hepatitis D / Q000150:complications* / Q000821:virology; D003698:Hepatitis Delta Virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011044:Poland; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017385:Sequence Homology; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies
chemical_list: D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies; D012367:RNA, Viral