Stronger enhancer II/core promoter activities of hepatitis B virus isolates of B2 subgenotype than those of C2 subgenotype.

ABSTRACT: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotype C causes prolonged chronic infection and increased risk for liver cancer than genotype B. Our previous work revealed lower replication capacity of wild-type genotype C2 than B2 isolates. HBV DNA replication is driven by pregenomic RNA, which is controlled by core promoter (CP) and further augmented by enhancer I (ENI) and enhancer II (ENII). DNA fragments covering these regulatory elements were amplified from B2 and C2 isolates to generate luciferase reporter constructs. As ENII is fully embedded in CP, we inserted HBV DNA fragments in the sense orientation to determine their combined activities, and in the antisense orientation to measure enhancer activities alone. Genotype B2 isolates displayed higher ENI+ENII+CP, ENII+CP, and ENII activities, but not ENI

SUBMITTER: Qin Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4961966 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature