[The incidence rate of hepatitis B virus surface gene variants in Korean children with immunoprophylaxis failure of perinatal infection].
OBJECTIVE
Perinatal infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) may occur despite immunoprophylaxis. One of the important mechanisms for perinatal prophylaxis failure, might include HBV surface gene variants. Therefore, we screened Korean children, in whom perinatal prophylaxis failed, for HBV surface gene variants.


METHODS
Thirty-one children with perinatal HBV prophylaxis failure were selected. To amplify the major hydrophilic region of the HBV surface gene, nested PCR with primers targeted to nucleotides 237 to 706 was performed, and then sequencing was done.


RESULTS
All cases were shown to be PCR positive for HBV-DNA and genotype C. Nine out of 31 (29%) with perinatal prophylaxis failure had a nucleotide substitution at the major hydrophilic region of the gene; but only two cases (6.5%) had an amino acid substitution. One case was infected by wild type and variants of I126S, and the other by wild type and S114A+I126S, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
In Korea, compared to the previous studies of other nations, gene surface variants such as G145R do not appear to play an important role in perinatal immunoprophylaxis failure.
Kim
Jong-Hyun
JH
Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea. jh00mn@catholic.ac.kr
Koh
Dae Kyun
DK
Hur
Jae Kyun
JK
Kang
Jin Han
JH
Nainan
Omana V
OV
Margolis
Harold S
HS
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000821:virology; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein; D014611:Vaccination
D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines