Correlation between hepatitis B virus precore gene mutation and hepatocellular carcinoma

Objective The aim of the study was to investigate the mutation of precore (PreC) region of hepatitis B virus (HBV) gene and its association with hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods A total of 99 HBV patients were divided into two groups: chronic hepatitis B(CHB, 55) and hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC, 44). The precore gene fragment was amplified by nested PCR and analyzed by direct DNA sequencing.To analyze the relationships between HCC occurrence and age, sex, baseline HBV DNA, HBeAg status, precore region gene mutation was analyzed in two groups by using the method of case-control. Results There was significant difference between the patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and chronic HBV infection in the baseline levels of HBV DNA.In HBV precore promote region, the common point mutations were G1896A and G1899A.Compared with patients with chronic hepatitis B, point mutation G1896A, patients with liver cancer had a higher incidence of point mutation G1896A. The negative rate of HBeAg in patients with mutation with G1896A was much higher in CHB group than HCC group, the difference was significant (P 0.05). The rate of insertion or deletion mutations in HBV DNA Precore gene were lower than point mutation. Conclusion HBV PC 1896 mutation was correlated with the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Key words: Carcinoma, hepatocellular; Hepatitis B virus; Genes; Mutation