Arch Virol (2005) 150: 1639–1651
DOI 10.1007/s00705-005-0501-5
Mutation analysis of hepatitis B virus promoters
in chronically infected children
J. W. Sohn
2
,C.W.Lee
1
,J.H.Lee
1
,K.C.Lee
1
,C.S.Son
1
,
J. W. Lee
1
, and Y. M. Ha-Lee
3
1
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
2
Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
3
Department of Life Science, Yonsei University, Wonju, Kangwondo, Korea
Received September 22, 2004; accepted January 12, 2005
Published online April 21, 2005
c
Springer-Verlag 2005
Summary. Hepatitis B viral (HBV) infection in early childhood is one of the
leading causes of chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis that eventually lead to hepatic
carcinoma. Despite the nationwide immunization programs to curtail the vertical
transmission of HBV, childhood HBV infection through mothers is still occurring
in Korea.As one of the efforts to understand the childhood HBV infection in Korea,
four HBV promoter sequences in the sera of the chronically infected children
were analyzed. Children harbored diverse viral variants as most of the chronically
infected adult patients, but the deletion mutations were rare. The dominant viral
sequences in the children were highly similar to the ones in the respective mothers,
indicating that the maternal viruses were most likely transmitted to the children.
The mutations in X, S1, S2/S promoters did not seem to show any correlation to
the severity of the disease nor ages of the children. The mutations that showed
some correlation to the severity of the disease were the mutations in C promoter,
but the mutations did not seem to be vertically transmitted. Finally, the children
with the elevated ALT/AST levels tended to have more child-specific variants
suggesting that the accumulation of host-specific mutations might be associated
with the development of clinical symptoms.
Introduction
The vertical transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the leading causes
of chronic hepatitis in Korea. Although the active and passive immunization
immediately after birth have effectively cut down most vertical transmissions
of HBV from chronically infected mothers to infants, not all of the vertical
transmission could be prevented. HBV infection still occurs in about 10–15%