More viral mutants, less HBsAg clearance? One size may not fit all

Dear Sir, We read with great interest the article by Bayliss et al1 e-published in August 2016. HBV is a DNA virus and viral mutants develop during the course of persistent infection because of the spontaneous error of viral reverse transcription. Some of the viral mutants will be selected and become the predominant strains under the pressure of host immunity if they bear better replication fitness. Two common HBV mutants, mutations in precore stop codon (PC) (G1896A) and basal core promoter (BCP) (A1762T/G1764A), have been shown to abolish or reduce the production of HBeAg, respectively, which contribute to disease progression.2 In previous reports, these viral variants were determined using population sequencing, which is a qualitative assay thus limits its clinical usefulness.2 With recent advance of biotechnology, the proportion of viral variants can be correctly quantified and the minor variants can be detected even...

Source: Gut - June 6, 2017 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tseng, T.-C., Yang, H.-C., Kao, J.-H. Tags: PostScript Source Type: research