A single amino acid in the reverse transcriptase domain of hepatitis B virus affects virus replication efficiency.

ABSTRACT: To explore functional domains in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase, two naturally occurring HBV isolates (56 and 2-18) with 98.7% nucleic acid sequence homology but different replication efficiencies were studied. After transfection into HepG2 cells, HBV DNA isolated from intracellular virus core particles was much higher in 56-transfected cells than in cells transfected with 2-18. The structural basis for the difference in replication efficiency between these two isolates was studied by functional domain gene substitution. The complete polymerase (P) gene and its gene segments coding for the terminal protein (TP), spacer (SP), reverse transcriptase (RT), and RNase H in 2-18 were separately replaced with their counterparts from 56 to construct full-length chimeric genomes. Cell transf

SUBMITTER: Lin X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC114769 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature