AIM: Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) mutant of hepatitisB virus (HBV) is one of the important factors that result inimmune escape and cause failure of immunization. In thisstudy we reported and characterized a novel HBV mutantwith A-to-G at nt551 and intended to provide theoreticaldata for prevention of HBV infection in China.METHODS: A methodology comprising polymerase chainreaction (PCR) amplifying, M13 bacteriophage cloning andnucleotide sequencing was used to analyze the sera of thepediatric patient who was hepatitis B (HB) immune failure.Expression plasmids containing the mutant S gene and awild-type (adr) S gene were constructed respectively andthe recombinant HBsAg were expressed in COS-7 cells underthe regulation of SV40 early promoter. The recombinantproteins were investigated for their immunological reactivitywith different monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against 'a'determinant and vaccine-raised human neutralizingantibodies.RESULTS: It was found that there was a new point mutationat nt551 of the HBV (adr) genome from A to G, leading to asubstitution of methionine (Met) to valine (Val) at position133 in the 'a' determinant of HBsAg. Compared to the wild-type HBsAg, the binding activity of the muant HBsAg tomAbs (A6, A11 and S17) and to vaccine-raised human anti-hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs) decreased significantly.CONCLUSION: According to the facts that the patient hasbeen immunized with HB vaccine and that the serum is anti-HBs positive and HBsAg negative, and based on thenucleotide sequence analysis of the mutant HBV S geneand its alteration of antigenicity, the HBV is considered tobe a new vaccine-induced immune escape mutant differentfrom the known ones.
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