Novel pre-C/C gene mutants of hepatitis B virus in chronic active hepatitis: naturally occurring escape mutants Lee, Young Ik and Hur, Gang Min and Suh, Dong-Jin and Kim, Sun Hee,, 77, 1129-1138 (1996), doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-77-6-1129, publicationName = Microbiology Society, issn = 0022-1317, abstract= We have analysed serum samples taken from hepatitis B virus (HBV) e antigen (HBeAg)-positive and HBeAg-negative chronic active hepatitis (CAH) patients by PCR using primers spanning the pre-core/core (C) and pre-S1/S2 ORFs. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed that among 18 HBV-infected CAH patients, 11 had virus with a G to A mutation (nucleotide 1896; leading to the formation of a stop codon) and one patient also had virus with an additional G to A mutation three nucleotides downstream (nucleotide 1899). HBV from three patients that were HBeAg-negative showed a 1 bp deletion at nucleotide 1937, causing pre-termination of the C gene. Mutation frequencies in the sequences identified as coding for cytotoxic T lymphocyte epitopes, B cell epitopes, CD4+ helper T cell epitopes and arginine-rich regions of the HBV C peptide were investigated. Mutations were more frequently identified in these regions, suggesting that the mutations might have been selected as a result of immune responses., language=, type=