HBC Ag, anti-HBC, and DNA polymerase activity in transfused recipients followed prospectively

Hepatitis B virus infection and transfusion medicine: science and the occult

“…Increased levels of L chains also appear to down‐regulate the release of the 20‐nm HBsAg particles and may be a factor in the discordance sometimes seen between HBsAg and HBV DNA resulting in occult hepatitis B. It is believed that nonenveloped nucleocapsids (i.e., naked virions) are not released from infected cells in the absence of cell injury 13,14 . The L chains are known to contain the recognition site for binding to hepatocytes in addition to their role in viral assembly and infectivity.…”

“…The lower CID 50 observed in the study by Komiya and colleagues 55 may be the result of using blood collected during the early stages of acute infection before the detection of anti‐HBc and anti‐HBs, which may have nullified any tendency for neutralization of the inocula. A lack of detection of these antibodies in the blood, however, does not necessarily equate with an absence of secretion 14 since complexing with specific antigen was not investigated. Unfortunately, neither of these studies used seronegative occult infectious samples of blood that were HBV DNA–positive but HBsAg and anti‐HBc–negative or blood from more conventionally defined occult hepatitis B cases that were HBsAg and anti‐HBs–negative, but HBV DNA and anti‐HBc–positive to define minimum infectious doses of HBV.…”

Endogenous DNA Polymerase-Positive Core Particles from Hepatitis-Infected Hepatocytes

“…An immunoradiometric assay was per formed essentially as described previously [5,7] with the following modifications. The w'ells of polyvinyl microtiter plates (No.…”

“…The residual cpm present in wells that received antigen was divided by the mean residual cpm in wells that received an appropriate negative control. Quotients greater than 2.1 were considered positive based on comparative tests of a micro-SPIRA for HBS Ag [5,10], DMA polymerase. The presence of an endogenous DNA-dependent DNA polymerase was assayed by the method of Kapi an el al.…”

“…[2]. In a recent paper by Hollinger et al [5], DNA polymerase activity was observed in the sera of all recipients tested who developed liver enzyme abnormalities. The poly merase activity usually occurred in the early stages of incubation before the transaminase values became abnormal.…”