mutations in pre-core and basal-core promoter regions of hepatitis b virus in chronic hbv patients from golestan, iran

objective(s): it has been reported that the mutation of the pre-core (pc) and basal-core promoter (bcp) may play an important role in the development of hbv-related hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). in this study the pc and bcp mutations were investigated in chronic hbv patients. materials and methods:in this study, 120 chronic hbv patients from golestan, northeast of iran who were not vaccinated against hbv, were recruited from the year 2008 to 2012. hbv-dna extraction from plasma and pcr were performed and positive pcr products were subjected to automated sequencing. results:one hundred out of 120 (83.3%) patients were hbeag negative. comparison of our nucleotide sequences with reference sequence showed high rate mutation in bcp and pc region (96.66%). frame shift mutation was found in 78 (65%) of patients in bcp region, among them 8 (6.6%) patients showed mutation in pc region. conclusion: our results demonstrated high rate of mutations in bcp and pc regions among hbv chronic patients in northeast of iran.