This work was funded by the grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China(81672414,81472548,and 81702906).
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a primary cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Under selection pressures of host immunity and/or immunoprophylaxis and antiviral therapies, HBV evolves by accumulating mutation...
AIM: To identify the prevalence of pre-S2 start codon mutations and to assess their association with liver disease progression. METHODS: The mutations were identified by direct sequencing from 73 asymptomatic carriers...