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Completely or nearly identical hepatitis B virus strains replicate between patients with acute or fulminant hepatitis B and their respective infectious sources
Author(s) -
Aye Thein Thein,
Uchida Toshikazu,
Becker Sven O.,
Shikata Toshio,
Mima Satoaki
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.1890420112
Subject(s) - fulminant hepatitis , virology , fulminant , hepatitis b virus , virus , hepatitis , hepatitis b , hepadnaviridae , transmission (telecommunications) , viral disease , medicine , immunology , biology , electrical engineering , engineering
Five patients with acute hepatitis B and four with fulminant hepatitis B were selected for sequencing of the precore/core gene of the virus strains. Furthermore, identical sequencing was done with the HBV of the infectious sources, i.e., the sexual partner in eight cases and a natural child (chronic carrier) infecting the mother in one case. Of the subjects responsible for the infection, four were healthy HBV carriers, three suffered from chronic hepatitis B, and one from acute and one from fulminant hepatitis B. The nucleotide sequences of HBV from both the patients and the implicated sources of infection exhibited perfect identity of the precore region and perfect or high identity of the core region. The completely or nearly identical strain of virus seemed to proliferate successively in the patients following the transmission from the infecting individuals regardless of sequence variations and infectious status. In two cases a peculiar pattern of infection and disease was found: In one married couple the husband, during the incubation period of acute hepatitis B, infected his wife, who developed fulminant hepatitis. In another married couple, both partners ultimately developed fulminant hepatitis (the wife being the source of the infection). © 1994 Wiiey‐Liss, Inc.