Complete genomic sequence and phylogenetic relatedness of hepatitis B virus isolates in Cambodia

Tran Thien Tuan Huy (1) , Amadou Alpha Sall (2, 3) , Jean-Marc Reynes (2, 4) , Kenji Abe (1)

1 National Institute of Infectious Diseases [Tokyo]
2 Unité de Virologie / Virology Unit [Phnom Penh]
3 Institut Pasteur de Dakar
4 Institut Pasteur de Madagascar

Although it is known that Cambodia is one of the high endemic area of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, molecular characterization of HBV circulating in this country has not been reported. In this study, pre-S gene of HBV from 12 Cambodian patients was sequenced. Phylo-genetic analysis based on the pre-S gene sequence revealed that 8 out of 12 isolates (66.7%) belonged to HBV/C1 and remaining four (33.3%) were HBV/B4. Furthermore, complete genomic sequences were also determined for three Cambodian HBV isolates. They all comprised of 3,215 bp long and two of them belonged to subgenotype B4, which had recombination event with genotype C in the precore/core gene confirmed by SimPlot and BootScanning analyses. Our results showed that both HBV strains belonged to subgenotypes B4 and C1, which are circulating in this country. This is the first report on molecular characterization of the HBV prevalent in Cambodia.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus (HBV); HBV genome; HBV genotypes; HBV Asian strain; Cambodia

Domains: Infectious diseases; Virology; Santé publique et épidémiologie

Tran Thien Tuan Huy, Amadou Alpha Sall, Jean-Marc Reynes, Kenji Abe. Complete genomic sequence and phylogenetic relatedness of hepatitis B virus isolates in Cambodia. Virus Genes, 2008, 36 (2), pp.299 - 305. ⟨10.1007/s11262-008-0205-5⟩. ⟨pasteur-01835643⟩