Prevalence of williams e₁ antigen in comparison with e₂ antigen in hepatitis b antigen carriers and patients in hemodialysis unit

Abstract

The prevalence of both e1 and e2 antigens in 1,158 sera of asymptomatic HBsAg carriers, carriers in hemodialysis units, and HBsAg-negative blood donors was examined. The detection rate of e1 antigen was as high as 80% in asymptomatic carriers, 95% in hemodialysis patients, and even 13.1% in HBsAg-negative donors. All of the e1 antigen-positive specimens in such HBsAg-negative sera were found to have both or either anti-HBs and anti-HBc, suggesting the past history of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection of the donors. In the HBsAg-positive serum, the detection rate of e2 antigen (17%) was lower than that of e1 (80%), and all sera having e2 antigen were positive for e1 antigen. The titers of HBsAg, HBcAg, and anti-HBc in e2 antigen-positive sera were higher than that of sera detecting only e1 antigen. The appearance of e1 antigen and e2 antigen in the course of post-transfusion hepatitis B was studied with five cases. Retrospective study showed that three of them each received one unit of HBsAg-positive blood, and the other two received HBsAg-negative blood but with high-titered anti-HBc. In four cases out of five, in which e2 antigen was detected during the course of infection, the initial detection of e2 antigen occurred at or just before the elevation of liver enzyme levels. On the other hand, e1 antigen was detected relatively early after transfusion, and the time of onset. Moreover, the detection period of e1 antigen persisted longer, even after the disappearance of HBsAg antigenemia. These two separate studies suggest that not only e2 antigen but also e1 antigen are associated with the infection of HBV, but they are distinct from each other; the e2 antigen may have the properties of a signal of the viral activity in the patient as suggested by many others, but e1 antigen does not seem to bear such diagnostic values.

Immunological and Morphological Properties of HBeAg Subtypes (HBeAg/1 and HBeAg/2) in Hepatitis B Virus Core Particles

“…In later studies (Yamada et al, 1979;Ohori et al, 1980b), we demonstrated that HBeAg/I is detectable for longer periods than HBeAg/2 in patients' sera during HBV infection. HBeAg/1 can be detected in the early phase of infection and also late after recovery.…”

“…HBsAg titres were determined by the reversed passive haemagglutination (RPHA: Antihebscell; The Green Cross Corp., Osaka, Japan) method and anti-HBsAg was determined by the passive haemagglutination (PHA: HebsgenceU; The Green Cross Corp.) method. HBcAg and anti-HBcAg titres were determined by the RPHA and RPHA inhibition (RPHAI) methods as described previously (Yamada et al, 1979;Ohori et al, 1980b).…”

Relationship between the Replication of Hepatitis B Virus and the Localization of Virus Nucleocapsid Antigen (HBcAg) in Hepatocytes

“…The following connections have been found. (i) When hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), which is part of HBcAg (Ohori et al, 1979; Mackay et al, 1981), is detectable in serum, Dane particles, HBV-specific DNA polymerase and DNA are demonstrable in the serum (Nordenfelt & Kjellen, 1975;Imai et al, 1976;Ohori et al, 1980) and HBcAg and HBV DNA in liver tissues (Bonino et al, 1981;Hadziyannis et al, 1983). (ii) The localization of HBcAg in hepatocytes varies even in the same tissue (Gudat et al, 1975;Yamada & Nakane, 1977; Huang & Neurath, 1979).…”

Virological classification of autopsy livers with hepatic disorders.

“…This supernatant was used for detecting HBV associated markers (HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HBc antibodies). The assay of HBsAg was performed by reversed passive haemagglutination (RPHA : Antihebscell, The Green Cross Inc., Osaka), anti-HBs by passive haemagglutination (PHA : Hebsgencell, The Green Cross Inc., Osaka), and anti-HBc by radioimmunoassay (RIA : Corab kit, Abott Laboratories, Chicago, Ill. U.S.A.) and RPHA-Inhibition (RPHAI), following the procedure of Ohori et al (1980). HBsAg and anti-HBs levels in serum were also determined.…”

“…[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], the DNA in 3 of their livers (Nos. 13, 17 and 20) could hybridize with cloned DNA (pBR 322 plus HBV DNA) and could also hybridize with pBR 322 DNA alone.…”