In vitro replication phenotype of a novel (-1G) hepatitis B virus variant associated with HIV co-infection

Abstract

The -1G mutant HBV is more prevalent in individuals co-infected with HIV/HBV than in individuals infected with HBV alone and in some cases is the dominant virus in circulation. This mutant is created by the deletion of a dGMP (-1G) from the guanine rich homopolymer sequence located at nts 2,085-2,090 (numbering from EcoRI site as position 1) in the HBV core gene. This deletion causes a frameshift generating a premature stop codon at 64Asn in the HBV core gene (codon 93 in the precore gene), that truncates the precore protein, precursor of the secreted hepatitis B "e" antigen (HBeAg), and the core protein which forms the viral nucleocapsid. However, the replication phenotype of the -1G mutant..