TABLE 1.
Features of HBV infection in the blood from the patients studied
| Patient | HBV vaccination | ALT/AST concn (IU/ml)a | Detection of:
|
HBV DNA viral loadb (copies/ml)/genotype | HBs Ag mutation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HBsAg | Anti-HBs | HBeAg/anti-HBe | |||||
| S2 | Yes | 75/66 | + | + | +/− | >4 × 107/E | Leu209Val |
| S1 | No | 44/36 | + | − | +/− | 3.845 × 107/E | Leu209Val |
| Asp144Ala | |||||||
| M | No | 23/25 | + | − | −/+ | <315/−c | |
a
Normal ALT values, 0 to 41 IU/liter; normal AST values, 0 to 32 IU/liter.
b
Limit of detection of COBAS AMPLICOR HBV MONITOR test, 315 HBV DNA copies/ml.
c
In-house PCRs also rendered negative results when plasma and whole-blood samples were analyzed. Amplification products were undetectable when both the S and the core-region genes were amplified by PCR (limit of detection, 50 copies/ml), nested PCR, and nested PCR followed by boosted PCR, in which the products were revealed by silver staining of a polyacrylamide gel after electrophoresis.