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. 1986 Dec;66(3):709–715.

Translation products of pre-S(1), pre-S(2) regions and the S gene of hepatitis B virus: susceptibility of their antigenic activities to treatment with heat, urea formalin or pepsin

H Ohnuma, A Machida, Emiko Takai, F Tsuda, H Miyamoto, T Tanaka, K Oda, S Usuda, T Nakamura, Y Miyakawa, M Mayumi
PMCID: PMC1542458  PMID: 2436843

Abstract

Hepatitis B subviral particles, purified from plasma of asymptomatic carriers seropositive for hepatitis B e antigen, were treated with various conditions reported for the processing of vaccines. Thereafter, antigenic activities displayed by the translation products of pre-S(1), pre-(2) regions and the S gene were determined with monoclonal antibodies, and the reactivity for polyalbumin receptor was tested. Heating at 100°C for 1·5 min and then at 65°C for 10 h preserved more than 1/2 of antigenic activities representing products of pre-S(1), pre-S(2) regions and the S gene. After incubation in the presence of 8 M urea at 37°C for 4 h, more than 2/3 of antigenic activities still remained. The antigenic activity of the S gene product was decreased to 2/3 and that of pre-S(2) region product to 1/3, after treatment with formalin at the final concentration of 1:4000 at 37°C for 72 h, whereas the activity of pre-S(1) region product was affected drastically. Although 1/5 of the antigenic activity of the S gene product survived the digestion with pepsin for 18 h, antigenic activities of pre-S(1) and pre-S(2) region products were destroyed almost completely. Polyalbumin receptor, borne by the pre-S(2) region product, was lost by pepsin digestion also. Based on the results obtained, heating may be most appropriate for sterilizing plasma-derived hepatitis B particles for use as a vaccine, because it is reliably virucidal and would not affect the protective efficacy to an extent as the other virucidal methods would.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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