Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer mortality with nearly 700,000 deaths occurring annually. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major contributor to HCC and acquired mutations in the HBV genome may accelerate its pathogenesis. In this study, a matched case-control investigation of 345 men who died of HCC and 625 controls were nested within a cohort of male hepatitis B surface ...

A method has been developed for the analysis of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) antigenic structure at the molecular level that creates "fingerprints" or "signatures" of various hepatitis B viral (HBV) strains. This technique employs high affinity IgM and IgG monoclonal antibodies (anti-HBs) directed against distinct and separate determinants on HBsAg. In performing this antigenic structura...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are hyperendemic in sub-Saharan Africa. The HBV genotypes prevailing in HIV-infected Africans are unknown. Our aim was to determine the HBV genotypes in HIV-infected participants and to identify clinically significant HBV mutations. From 71 HBV DNA(+ve) HIV-infected participants, 49 basic core promoter/precore (BCP/PC) and 29 comple...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is frequent among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). HBV reactivation after transplant (KT) more common in HBsAg+; however, it can also occur previously infected individuals, particularly those HBsAg negative and total antiHBc positive (HBsAg-/antiHBcT+). However, this population has scarce conflicting data. This study aimed to assess the risk KT recip...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major health problem worldwide. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) and its associated risk factors, together with the molecular characterization of the virus in injecting drug users of Tehran. PATIENTS AND METHODS The study consisted of 229 injecting drug users. Serum sampl...

Molecular biomarkers are becoming increasingly important tools to identify people who are at highest risk of developing cancer. For many years we have been studying residents of Qidong County, People's Republic of China, to examine the combined impact of aflatoxin exposure with other risk factors as contributors to the high liver cancer incidence rates in this region. This study was conducted t...

AIM To study sex disparity in susceptibility to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we created a transgenic mouse model that expressed the full hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome with the W4P mutation. METHODS Transgenic mice were generated by transferring the pHY92-1.1x-HBV-full genome plasmid (genotype A2) into C57Bl/6N mice. We compared serum levels of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), interleu...

AIMS This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence and characteristics of hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes, antigen subtypes, "a" determinant variants and pre-S gene mutations circulating on a large scale in Thailand. METHODS The sequences of the Pre-S1, Pre-S2 and S regions were determined in serum samples of 147 HBsAg and HBV DNA-positive subjects who had been enrolled from the nat...

 Abstract Background: Investigators were suspicious of tyrosine-methionine-aspartate-aspartate (YMDD) mutations occurred only in patients who were treated by lamivudine. However, YMDD mutations of hepatitis B virus gene (HBV DNA) in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) untreated with antiviral medicines was reported in some studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate YMDD mutations in Ira...

background although certain hbv mutations are known to affect the expression of hepatitis e antigen, their association with hbv viral level or clinical outcomes is less clear. objectives we evaluated associations between different mutations in the basal core promoter (bcp) and pre-core (pc) regions of hbv genome and subsequent changes in hbv viral dna level over seven years in a population of u...