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Selective transmission of variant genomes from mother to infant in neonatal fulminant hepatitis B
Author(s) -
Weizsäcker Fritz Von,
Pult Irmgard,
Geiss Katja,
Wirth Stefan,
Blum Hubert E.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.488
H-Index - 361
eISSN - 1527-3350
pISSN - 0270-9139
DOI - 10.1002/hep.1840210103
Subject(s) - fulminant hepatitis , virology , fulminant , transmission (telecommunications) , hepatitis b virus , hepatology , hepatitis b , biology , virus , medicine , immunology , electrical engineering , engineering
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) nucleotide sequences isolated from mother/child pairs were analyzed in three cases of neonatal fulminant hepatitis B (FHB). Heterogeneous HBV sequences consistent with both adw2 and ayw subtype were found in all three mothers. In one case, in which the child survived, both subtypes were transmited. By contrast, only the ayw subtype was present in the two other children with a fatal course of FHB. In one fatal case, studied in greater detail, multiple HBV variants (viral quasi‐species) were identified in both mother and child. A direct sequence comparison showed that only a subfraction of the virus pool from the mother was transmitted and that multiple new mutations emerged in the child. These data suggest that a minor HBV subpopulation from the mother may prevail as the dominant species in the child and that neonatal FHB is associated with the selection of mutant strains. (Hepatology 1995;21:8–13).