Comparison of evolutionary patterns of different HBeAg status in HBV genotype B and C

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this work was to investigate the different evolutionary patterns between HBeAg(+) and HBeAg(-) status of genotype B and genotype C of Hepatitis B virus (HBV). Complete HBV genome sequences were obtained from GenBank, and were classified as HBeAg(+) of genotype B, HBeAg(-) of genotype B, HBeAg(+) of genotype C, and HBeAg(-) of genotype C. The results showed that genotype B had lower diversity and a longer phylogenetic tree than genotype C. This means that genotype B was more conserved than genotype C. The genetic distance of HBeAg(+) was shorter than that of HBeAg(-) in genotype B. dN, dS, dN/dS of HBeAg(+) were lower than that of HBeAg(-). In addition, the Core and S genes had lower diversity, and were under lower selective pressure than other genes. We propose that by having different HBeAg HBV receives disparate immune selective pressures, however these different genotypes also receive disparate natural selective pressures. The evolutionary pattern of HBV could be one of the important factors that may affect viral replication in HBV infected patients and could therefore play an important role in the diseases progression.