Arch Virol (2006) 151: 589–597
DOI 10.1007/s00705-005-0671-1
Genomic characterization of HBV genotype F in Bolivia:
genotype F subgenotypes correlate with geographic
distribution and T
1858
variant
Brief Report
T. T. T. Huy
1,2
, H. Ushijima
2
, T. Sata
1
, and K. Abe
1
1
Department of Pathology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan
2
Department of Developmental Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine,
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Received August 15, 2005; accepted September 26, 2005
Published online November 21, 2005
c
Springer-Verlag 2005
Summary. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) strains were classified into eight genotypes
from A to H. Genotype F, an indigenous genotype in Central and South America,
has been classified into subgenotypes. An in-depth phylogenetic analysis was
performed using two full-length Bolivian HBV sequences and other genotype F
strains from the database. A novel nomenclature of subgenotypes of genotype
F was proposed, in which Bolivia strains belonged to subgenotype F4. This
subgenotype had both Leu
45
and Ile
110
in the S gene, and linked to the T
1858
in the
precore. This novel nomenclature demonstrated the relation between variability
of the HBV genome and the restricted geographical distribution of the virus in
some parts of Central and South America.
∗
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is an important etiologic agent of acute and chronic
hepatitis, with over 350 million chronic infected patients around the world [14].
HBV strains are classified into eight genotypes, from A to H [4, 24, 26, 29].
Genotypes A and D are distributed widely in Europe, genotypes B and C are
found in East Asia, and genotype E is confined to the sub-Sahara Africa [24].
Genotype G has been sporadically found in North America, Europe and Japan
[10, 28–30]. Genotypes F and H, which are genetically divergent from the other
Nucleotide sequence data reported are available in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases
under the accession numbers: AB166850 (HBV-BL592), AB214516 (HBV-BL597).