Study on the relationship between precore and BCP mutants and hepatitis B virus genotyping in patients with HBV infection

Objective To explore the relationship between prevalence of precore and basal core promotor(BCP) mutants and hepatitis B virus(HBV) genotyping,and it may provides the laboratory informations for a physician to planning clinical therapy for patients.Methods Ninety-eight chronic hepatitis B(CHB) patients who were antivirus-untreated were recruited in this study.HBV genotyping were performed by gene sequencing.Meantime,precore and BCP of HBV were also sequenced in all patients.Results HBV genotypes A,B,C,D and B/C mixed genotype were found by gene sequencing in this study,their proportions were 11.2%(11/98),20.4%(20/98),57.1%(56/98),8.2%(8/98) and 3.1%(3/98) respectively.There were higher morbidities of genotypes B and C than that of the others.There were higher frequence of mutations of precore(46.9%,46/98) in genotype C than that of the others,there was a significant difference in the mutations of precore gene with genotypes(χ2=47.85,P0.01).Frequence of mutations in BCP was higher in genotype C(46.9%,46/98) than that in the others,there was a significant difference in the mutations of BCP with genotypes(χ2=67.14,P0.01).Conclusions Genotypes B and C are the most prevalent HBV genotypes in this study,and genotypes C was closely related to the presence of BCP and precore mutants.