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Detection of minute amounts of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in the serum using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assay involves extracting the viral DNA from the viral particle in the serum, removing inhibitors of PCR, performing the PCR, and detecting the PCR product. PCR is an extremely sens ...

Cell-free RNA of a different origin is known to circulate in the blood (1–3). This finding has also been reported for RNA specified by viruses with a DNA genome, such as the hepatitis B virus (HBV)(4). In the infected cell, genomic and subgenomic HBV-RNA molecules are synthesized from episomal genomes. Wi ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA is present in the blood of patients with acute or chronic HBV infection at concentrations representing up to hundreds of millions of virions per milliliter of plasma. Detection of HBV DNA was feasible, if not particularly sensitive, even before development of methods ...

Hepadnaviruses utilize an unusual replication strategy. On infection, the partially double-stranded open circular genomic DNA is transported to the hepatocyte nucleus, where host-cell enzymes convert it to a relaxed circular fully double-stranded molecule. From this replic ...

The technique of in situ hybridization was first developed to localize specific DNA sequences on chromosomes (1). This technique has subsequently been modified to detect viral nuclear acids in tissue sections. Information gathered from this type of study can help us to identify the site of vi ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) leads to an overexpression of its surface antigen (HBsAg) in the infected hepatocytes. HBsAg is constitutively secreted as pleomorphic particles, predominantly spherical and partly filamentous. Their diameter appears in negatively stained electron mi ...

The genome of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a partially double-stranded DNA molecule within virus particles that is approx 3.2 kbp long (1,2). It has four open reading frames, all on one strand, that encode the surface antigen or envelope polypeptides, core or nucleocapsid polypeptide, the viral polym ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the most common type of viral hepatitis, affecting more than 350 million people worldwide. To understand in detail the pathogenetic mechanisms involved and assess the value of antiviral therapy, the detection of HBV antigens and genome in the target organ, ...

The classical method for typing and subtyping individual hepatitis B viruses (HBV) is serotyping. Although serotyping has generally been useful for determining antigenic distinctions among viruses, some limitations have been observed. For example, some viruses, such as measles a ...

This chapter describes the methodology, analysis, and assessment of the significance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) mutations selected during antiviral therapy. Included in this description is the methodology for genotype classification. The major area of sequence-analysis metho ...

Human hepatitis B virus (HBV) produces three structurally related envelope proteins (also called surface antigens) from a single open reading frame (ORF) (Fig. 1). This ORF contains three in-frame translational initiation AUG codons, dividing it into three regions: preS1, preS2, and S (1,2). ...

“Incomplete particles” were discovered during successive undiluted passages of the influenza viruses (1). In general, these incomplete particles contain a less than full-length genome and are replication-defective. They can be rescued by, and interfere with, the replication of ho ...

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) can cause acute as well as chronic infections of the human liver. More than 300 million individuals are chronically infected worldwide, and it has been estimated that about 1 million of them die annually as a consequence of the infection (1).

Hepatitis B continues to remain one of mankind’s major infectious scourges, causing considerable morbidity and mortality. It has been estimated that no less than one-third of all individuals alive today have been infected at some time with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Of the estimated 350 milli ...

The initial step in viral infection is binding of the particle to a receptor on the host-cell surface. The specificity of this process is the outcome of an evolutionary adaptation of the pathogen to its host. Receptor recognition frequently determines host specificity and tissue tropism. For e ...

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) C gene encodes the core protein and the precore protein. The core protein, also known as the core antigen, is an important serologic marker for HBV infection. Although this protein is rarely detected in free forms in patients with HBV, the antibody directed against this prot ...

Eukaryotic cells are compartmentalized and therefore possess mechanisms to transport molecules between the different organelles. Viruses take advantage of cellular transcription and translation machinery for their multiplication. Consequently, they utilize cell ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major human infectious pathogen. Worldwide, there are more than 350 million chronic carriers of HBV. Sequence divergence within the HBV genome is observed during long-term infection of HBV in patients as a result of the low fidelity of HBV reverse transcriptase. The imp ...

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major public health problem worldwide as well as a therapeutic challenge (1). HBV belongs to the hepadnavirus family and replicates its DNA genome via a reverse transcription step (2). The spontaneous error rate of the viral reverse transcr ...

Duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV), like all other hepadnaviruses, is a retroid virus that bears a small DNA genome and replicates this DNA genome via reverse transcription through an RNA intermediate called pregenomic RNA (pgRNA; 1). All hepadnaviruses encode a multifunctional polymerase (p ...