Abstract
ObjectiveChronic hepatitis B (CHB) virus infection is the most prevalent chronic liver disease and has become a serious threat to human health. In this study, we attempted to specify and predict several properties including physicochemical, mutation sites, B-cell epitopes, phosphorylation sites, N-link, O-link glycosylation sites, and protein structures of S protein isolated from Ahvaz. Materials and methodsInitially, hepatitis B virus DNA (HBV DNA) was extracted from five sera samples of untreated chronic hepatitis B patients. The full-length HBV genomes were amplified and then cloned in pTZ57 R/T vector. The full sequences of HBV were registered in the GenBank with accessions numbers (MK355500), (MK355501) and (MK693107-9). PROTSCALE, Expasy's ProtParam, immuneepitope, ABCpred, BcePred, Bepipred, Algpred, VaxiJen, SCRATCH, DiANNA, plus a number of online analytical processing tools were used to analyse and predict the preS/S gene of genotype D sequences. The present study is the first analytical research on samples obtained from Ahvaz. ResultsWe found major hydrophilic region (MHR) mutations at “a” determining region that included K122R, N131T, F134Y, P142L, and T126N mutations. Moreover, Ahvaz sequences revealed four sites (4, 112, 166, and 309) in the preS/S gene for N-glycosylation that could possibly be a potential target for anti-HBV therapy. ConclusionIn the present study, mutations were identified at positions T113S and N131T within the MHR region of S protein; these mutations can potentially decrease the effect of hepatitis B vaccination in vaccine recipients.
Highlights
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains as one of the major problems of health worldwide, with at least 257 million individuals who are chronically infected [1]
Sera samples were collected from five untreated patients (48.6% from females and 51.4% from males) with chronic hepatitis B virus infection who referred to Ahvaz hospitals during 2018
The results of our amino acid sequences of the preS/S gene compared to consensus genes showed several mutations at position L109R, T113S, K122R, T126N, N131T, F134Y, P142L, W163R and R169P of the major hydrophilic region (MHR)
Summary
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains as one of the major problems of health worldwide, with at least 257 million individuals who are chronically infected [1]. The envelope protein of HBV contains small, middle and large hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) proteins, which are encoded by S (preS1/preS2/S) ORF [2]. These proteins are employed for attaching to hepatic cells (S), contain several epitopes of B and T cell (M), and are used for diagnosing HBV infections in individuals (L) [2,5,6]. To date, concerning the nucleotide divergence >7.5% of the viral genome, HBV has been classified into 10 genotypes (A-J). Subgenotypes have been identified by the intergroup nucleotide divergence of 4–8 % among genotypes [2,5]
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