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Prevalence of HBV core promoter/precore/core mutations in Gambian chronic carriers

One hundred forty‐two precore/core sequences were obtained from Gambian chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriers and the predominant variants defined. The two point mutations, from A to T and G to A at nt positions 1762 and 1764 in the basic core promoter region, were found in only 7/99 (7%) of the samples where this region was sequenced. These mutations were found in both HBeAg‐positive and ‐negative patients. The precore stop‐codon mutation at nt position 1896 was found in 14/51 (27%) of HBeAg‐negative samples, which is a lower prevalence rate in comparison with other parts of the world with high carrier rates. In HBeAg‐positive patients the core amino acid sequences were conserved, but after seroconversion to anti‐HBe significantly more changes were apparent. Several of the amino acid substitutions found have been described previously been in wild‐type viruses of other genotypes. J. Med. Virol. 65:664–670, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.