Genotype determination in Moroccan hepatitis B chronic carriers.
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| Abstract | BACKGROUND: In Morocco, chronic liver disease related to hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a public health burden. Treatment of chronic hepatitis B is often complicated by the appearance of escape mutants after treatment with nucleoside analogs, especially with genotypes responsible for the more severe form of the disease. OBJECTIVES: In the present study we investigate the prevalence of the different HBV genotypes in Morocco since no previous careful study has been attempted. METHODS: Epidemiological data from 91 chronically infected patients (45 women and 46 men) were collected prospectively. Sera were tested for anti-HBc IgG, HBeAg, anti-HBe antibody and liver enzymes. Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) analysis was confirmed by subsequent sequencing of the pre-S and S region of the viral genome in order to determine which HBV genotypes were prevalent among Moroccan patients. RESULTS: The mean age was 41+/-12.4 years. Ten patients (11%) were positive for hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and 81 (89%) were positive for anti-HBe antibodies. By the RLFP method, genotype D, pattern D2, was found in the 77 cases where HBV was successfully amplified. Phylogenetic analysis based on pre-S/S sequences revealed that genotype D in Morocco differed from others D strains subgenotypes (D1, D2, D3 and D4). In addition, the pre-core mutant defined as HBeAg-negative/anti-HBe-positive and HBV DNA positive was detected in 86% of cases. CONCLUSIONS: Our results clearly show that genotype D and pre-core mutant are highly prevalent in Morocco.
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| Authors | Sayeh Ezzikouri, Isabelle Chemin, Abdelaziz Chafik, Lahsen Wakrim, Jalal Nourlil, Abdelouhad El Malki, Agnès Marchio, Anne Dejean, Mohammed Hassar, Christian Trepo, Pascal Pineau, Soumaya Benjelloun |
| Journal | Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases (Infect Genet Evol) Vol. 8 Issue 3 Pg. 306-12 (May 2008) ISSN: 1567-1348 [Print] Netherlands |
| PMID | 18372221 (Publication Type: Journal Article) |
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