Figure 3.

Impact of exchanging the 3′ S region on levels of intracellular replicative DNA and extracellular HBsAg. (A) The 1.1mer construct was used for exchange of the 3′ S region. The original construct and chimeric constructs with the entire envelope gene or the entire S region replaced were analyzed in parallel. Core particles were extracted from Huh7 cells at day 4 post-transfection for Southern blots of intracellular replicative DNA. Mixed probes of genotype B and genotype C were used for hybridization. (B) ELISA for HBsAg measured from culture supernatant from three independent experiments at the dilution of 1:300.