The Putative Recombination of Hepatitis B Virus Genotype B with Pre-C/C Region of Genotype C

Abstract

Among hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes the B and C are most prevalent in China. To further study on the inside story of the intertypes, the genotype of 136 sequences from Chinese patients were analyzed either by restriction fragment length polymorphism on fragments or by phylogenetic analysis and bootscanning on full genome. The 22 complete sequences of genotype B clustered with different genotypes depending on gene fragments analyzed, which indicated that recombinant events occurred during HBV evolutionary history. To locate the recombinant regions, the sequences of HBV entire genome were analyzed by SimPlot program. The recombinant regions of B genotype with recombination were mapped in the pre-C/C region with relatively less varied size. Besides, three sequences of genotype C have recombination with genotype B or D in different regions. However, among all of the 136 sequences, none of authentic genotype B was identified. To investigate the possible mechanism responsible for intertype recombination, the selection pressure on the recombinant region was estimated by using CODEML program. All models allow for positively selected sites suggest existence of positive selection pressure. In conclusion, the genotype B with recombination was exclusive subgroup of genotype B in China. The mosaic genotype B might result from immune pressure on the pre-C/C gene.

Identification of novel recombinants of hepatitis B virus genotypes F and G in human immunodeficiency virus-positive patients from Argentina and Brazil

“…Dual HBV infection and genomic recombination between different genotypes have been increasingly documented (Simmonds & Midgley, 2005;Sugauchi et al, 2003;Yang et al, 2007). Recombination has been found to occur more frequently in certain 'hot-spot' regions of the viral genome, such as the core region (Bowyer & Sim, 2000;Garmiri et al, 2009;Luo et al, 2004), pre-S1 (Chen et al, 2004), pre-S2/S (Chen et al, 2006;Wang et al, 2005), polymerase (Kurbanov et al, 2005;Magiorkinis et al, 2005) and X (Martin et al, 2011), and has been considered a significant source of HBV genetic variability (Simmonds & Midgley, 2005). In our study, all but one G/F recombinant clones had recombination breakpoints in the core region ( Fig.…”

456 Phylogenetic, virological and clinical characteristics of genotype C hepatitis B virus with TCC at codon 15 of the precore region

“…CCC at nucleotides 1856 to 1858 is found predominantly in HBV genotypes A, C, and F; and CCT at nucleotides 1856 to 1858 is found predominantly in HBV genotypes B, C, D, and E (2,19,20). In contrast, TCC at nucleotides 1856 to 1858 has been reported only in HBV genotype C isolates from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Vietnam (13,20,24,28). In our study, it was found almost exclusively within the Cs subgroup of genotype C HBV.…”

Virologic characteristics of hepatitis B virus in patients infected via maternal-fetal transmission

“…This deletion mutant has previously been reported in different clinical conditions, especially hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection with genotypes C and D, and fulminant hepatitis B (FHB) with genotype A in Africa. It has also been observed in isolates obtained from nonhuman primates (Table 2) [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] . Interestingly, there are no reports of this deletion mutation in genotypes B, E, F and G. In a heart transplant recipient who died from fulminate hepatitis B transmitted by the donor, the 18bp deletion was detected in the recipient, but not in the donor [20] .…”