HBe antibody unrelated to 'e minus' hepatitis B virus variant infection in patients with chronic type D hepatitis

The presence of HBV-DNA sequences was evaluated in DNA extracted from serum samples, peripheral blood lymphocytes and liver biopsy specimens of five HBsAg/anti-HBe-positive carriers with chronic HDV infection. DNAs were tested by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification technique using two pairs of oligonucleotide primers specific for the preC/C and S regions of the HBV; viral sequences were found exclusively in liver extracts and only in three out of the five cases. The direct sequencing of the amplified preC/C regions showed wild-type sequences in two cases, while in the third case a combination of 'wild' and 'e minus variant' viral populations was observed. Moreover, liver DNA of one positive case was electrophoresed through a low melting agarose gel and the following amplification, performed on DNA re-extracted from three different fragments of the gel, showed the presence of free HBV genomes but the absence of replicative intermediate forms. These results show that anti-HBe positivity is not constantly related to precore mutant HBV infection and suggest that HDV inhibits HBeAg production. Moreover, as it was observed in 'e minus' HBV variants, also during a chronic HBV wild-type infection, the viral replication might be suppressed to undetectable levels.