Mice containing livers repopulated with human hepatocytes would provide excellent in vivo models for studies on human liver diseases and hepatotropic viruses, for which no permissive cell lines exist. Here, we report partial repopulation of the liver of immunodeficient urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA)/recombinant activation gene-2 (RAG-2) mice with normal human hepatocytes isolated from the adult liver. In the transplanted mice, the production of human albumin was demonstrated, indicating that human hepatocytes remained functional in the mouse liver for at least 2 months after transplantation. Inoculation of transplanted mice with human hepatitis B virus (HBV) led to the establishment of productive HBV infection. According to human-specific genomic DNA analysis and immunostaining of cryostat liver sections, human hepatocytes were estimated to constitute up to 15% of the uPA/RAG-2 mouse liver. This is proof that normal human hepatocytes can integrate into the mouse hepatic parenchyma, undergo multiple cell divisions, and remain permissive for a human hepatotropic virus in a xenogenic liver. This system will provide new opportunities for studies on etiology and therapy of viral and nonviral human liver diseases, as well as on hepatocyte biology and hepatocellular transplantation. Persistent infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major worldwide health problem, and chronically infected individuals are at high risk for developing cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. 1,2 Despite the availability of an HBV vaccine, there are still more than 350 million chronically infected people worldwide, and the few antiviral treatments currently available have a limited rate of efficacy. The narrow host range of HBV and the lack of both in vitro systems and of convenient animal models have greatly hampered our understanding of the complete virus life cycle, as well as the development of more effective antiviral drugs aimed at eradicating the virus from chronic carriers. 3 Chimpanzees are the only animal species infectable with HBV, 4,5 but studies with these animals and evaluation of antiviral therapies are severely restricted because of their limited availability and high costs. Animal models based on HBV-related hepadnaviruses, such as woodchuck and Pekin duck hepatitis B viruses, are often used for assessment of antiviral drugs 6-8 and have provided important information about factors involved in establishment of virus infection, viral persistence, and hepatocarcinogenesis. 9-14 However, woodchucks are relatively large animals of outbred origins that are difficult to handle in many laboratories, and chronic hepadnavirus infection in birds does not lead to cancer. The development of HBV-expressing transgenic mice has also provided important insights regarding viral pathobiology and the role of HBV gene products in hepatocellular injury. 12,[15][16][17][18][19] Although infectious virus can be produced in transgenic mice, their hepatocytes are not permissive for infection. Therefore, the still-unknown early step...

Defective hepatitis B virus (HBV) genomes derived from packaging and reverse transcription of spliced RNA pregenomes were reported to be associated with progression to chronic infection. Since only two types with similarly spliced regions were characterized so far we reasoned that additional "spliced" genome variants may exist. Therefore, we isolated a large number of defective HBV genomes from sera of seven chronic carriers by full-length PCR. Forty-eight were found to contain deletions caused by splicing as identified by cloning, subgenomic PCR, and sequencing. In total, 11 types of spliced genomes derived from excision of 10 different introns were present in various combinations in each serum. This diversity resulted from alternative usage of five splice donor and four acceptor sites present in most but not all HBV genotypes. All spliced genomes shared sequence elements essential for replication as well as for transcription of the pre-C and pregenome/C mRNAs and the X mRNA. Moreover, all contained the coding regions for the X protein and for precore/core or precore/ core fusion proteins but lacked the pre-S/S gene promoters. These data demonstrate substantial and HBV genotype-dependent diversity of spliced genomes from which a variety of aberrant precore/core fusion proteins and normal X protein but no functional envelope and P proteins could be expressed. These genomes and the encoded proteins may play a role in the viral life cycle, persistence, and pathogenesis.

Little is known about the functional significance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) sequence heterogeneity. Here we analyzed the type, frequency, and function of mutations in the core promoter/enhancer II region of HBV in immunosuppressed patients. The major HBV population in immunosuppressed patients with severe liver disease had deletions, insertions, and/or base changes in this region. Such mutations were not found in immunosuppressed patients with mild disease. Except for two mutations, all created a hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 (HNF1) binding site or a potential HNF3 binding site. Occasionally, known binding sites for C/EBP and HNF4 were additionally duplicated. Eleven mutated core promoter prototype sequences were functionally tested in the context of a wild-type genome by transfection in Huh7 cells. Despite the diversity of mutations tested, all decreased steady-state levels of pre-C mRNA drastically and increased those of the C mRNA/ pregenomic RNA. This correlated with reduced levels of secreted hepatitis B e antigen and increased intracellular levels of core and Pol proteins and replicative HBV DNA intermediates. The levels of secreted HBV DNA-containing particles were also increased although most of the mutations reduced the levels of pre-S/S mRNA and pre-S1, and pre-S2 proteins as well as secretion of hepatitis B surface antigen. These data reveal a novel class of HBV variants with HNF1 binding sites in the core promoter which are characterized by a defect in hepatitis B e antigen expression, enhanced replication, and altered protein levels, all probably mediated by altered transcription factor binding. The phenotype of these variants and their prevalence only in immunosuppressed patients with severe liver disease may indicate that they play a role in pathogenesis.

Two hypermutated genomes of hepatitis B virus (HBV) were cloned from sera of chronic virus carriers. Twelve percent and 26% of guanosine residues were replaced by adenosine, with the transitions being erratically distributed along the genome. G-->A substitutions showed a strong dinucleotide preference, decreasing in the order GpA > GpG > > GpC > or = GpT. Such traits are typical of retroviral G-->A hypermutation which results from cDNA synthesis coinciding with fluctuations in the intracellular [dTTP]/[dCTP] ratio. The observations offer an explanation for the high prevalence of HBV variants bearing a tryptophan 28-->stop codon in the pre-core region of carriers with chronic active or fulminant hepatitis. The HBV hypermutants indicate that a small proportion of hepatocytes have distorted dNTP pools, which might have implications for the fidelity of hepatocyte DNA replication or repair.

Accumulation in immunosuppressed patients of hepatitis B virus (HBV) with a deletion in the C gene is associated with severe liver disease. The aim of this study was to determine the phenotype of such genomes in vitro. Four C gene fragments with different types of deletions were inserted in the context of a wild-type genome and tested by transfection into HuH7 cells. The deletions did not influence mRNA and surface protein levels. Truncated C gene translation products were expressed only from variants with in-frame deletions, whereas full-length polymerase was expressed from all variants at a similar or higher level than in wild-type virus. None of the variants was competent for autonomous replication; however, they produced 2- to 4.5-fold more progeny DNA than wild-type HBV when sufficiently complemented with wild-type core protein. Similarly, when variant and wild-type DNA were cotransfected in different ratios, the variants produced 2- to 5-fold more progeny DNA relative to the wild-type; this enrichment required the expression of the viral polymerase in cis. The mechanism of enrichment depended on the percentage of variant in the transfected DNA mixture. When the transfected DNA contained a small percentage of variant, enhanced replication of the variant accompanied by no or little suppression of wild-type replication was seen. Accordingly, overall production of progeny virus was slightly increased. At a high percentage of variant DNA, replication of both variant and wild-type decreased, probably due to a shortage of wild-type core protein. In conclusion, emergence of C gene deletion variants in vivo may be due to enhanced replication mediated at the level of encapsidation or reverse transcription. If the variants constitute a small part of the ccc DNA, they can be fully trans-complemented by wild-type virus which may increase the overall virus production.

To facilitate the investigation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) sequence variation, we recently established a method for functional analysis of PCR-amplified full-length HBV genomes. This study aimed at estimating the number of mutations introduced during amplification of genomes from samples from patients with low levels of viremia and their influence on replication and antigen expression. Wild-type HBV DNA template molecules in concentrations like those present in samples from patients with very low levels of viremia were amplified, sequenced (30 kb total), and functionally tested. We found that Taqpolymerase and a Taq-Pwo polymerase mixture introduced an average of 5.7 and 3.1 mutations per genome, respectively, corresponding to polymerase error rates of 12.1 × 10−5 and 6.0 × 10−5. One of 8 genomes (12%) amplified with Taq polymerase, but 7 of 17 genomes amplified with Taq-Pwo polymerases (41%), remained replication competent. All replication-competent genomes expressed HBs and HBe antigens and had an average of only 0.9 mutations per genome. In contrast, replication-defective genomes had an average of 5.4 mutations, which frequently also disturbed viral antigen expression. From these data we conclude that many of the replication-competent HBV genomes from a clinical specimen will retain their replication and antigen expression phenotypes even after extensive amplification withTaq-Pwo polymerases. Because replication competence is highly sensitive to random mutations, it is the best marker for the identification of HBV genomes with few or no PCR-introduced mutations.