Functional significance of hepatitis B virus subgenotype Cs genomic markers.

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection increases the risk of developing primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); about one million people die from HBV-related diseases annually. Development of new strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic HBV infection is important. In a case-control study to identify markers in the HBV genome that can be associated with HCC development, the complete HBV genomes from 200 HCC patients and controls were sequenced and genotyped; several hot-spot mutations in the HBV genome were identified as markers in each genotype.1 In this study, four genomic markers of HBV subgenotype Cs were selected to evaluate the impact of these markers on viral DNA replication and protein synthesis.