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Intra-host diversity of hepatitis B virus during mother-to-child transmission: the X gene may play a key role in virus survival in children after transmission

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A Correction to this article was published on 06 May 2020

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Abstract

Mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the main route of transmission in Asia, and characterization of HBV quasispecies is needed to further understand virus evolution and adaptation. To understand changes in HBV during mother-to-child transmission, we enrolled nine pairs of mothers and children in the study, including a set of twins. Three groups were infected with HBV genotype C, and six groups were infected with HBV genotype B. The full-length HBV genome was amplified by PCR from serum samples before antiviral treatment, the whole viral genomes from each pair were sequenced, and the complexity and diversity of the quasispecies were analyzed. The entropy of transmitted HBV in children was found to be lower than their mothers, suggesting that there was a bottleneck effect during HBV transmission from the mother to the child. Selective evolution was shown by calculating πN and πS in the whole genomes, and the highest values were obtained for the X gene, which plays a role in viral replication and immune escape. All genotype C patients and only one genotype B pair had a πN/πS greater than 1 ratio, indicating that positive selection had occurred. In addition, quasispecies were found to be different between the twin children despite having the same mother, indicating that virus evolution is host-specific.

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  • 06 May 2020

    Authors would like to correct few errors in their publication.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Key Project on “Major Infectious Diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis Prevention and Treatment” (grant number 2017ZX10201201-005-001, 2017ZX10201201-001-007, 2017ZX10201201-002-007); Shenzhen Healthcare Research Project (grant number SZLY2017014); Shenzhen Municipal Government of China (JCYJ20170817145915789); National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 81873573, 81800525). We thank Ms. Qilan Hong for assistance in HBV genome amplification and data analysis.

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Author notes

  1. Yanjie Li, Chenguang Shen and Liuqing Yang These authors contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Infectious Diseases, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, University of South China, Shenzhen, 518112, China

    Yanjie Li

  2. State Key Discipline of Infectious Diseases, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, No. 29, Bulan Road, Longgang District, Shenzhen, 518112, China

    Chenguang Shen, Liuqing Yang, Yang Yang, Miao Wang, Shanqin Li, Feng Chen, Min Yang, Ling Peng & Yingxia Liu

  3. BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China

    Jinmin Ma & Liqiang Li

  4. Difficult and complicated liver diseases and artificial liver center, Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100069, China

    Zhongping Duan

  5. China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518120, China

    Liqiang Li

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  1. Yanjie Li
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Correspondence to Zhongping Duan, Liqiang Li or Yingxia Liu.

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Li, Y., Shen, C., Yang, L. et al. Intra-host diversity of hepatitis B virus during mother-to-child transmission: the X gene may play a key role in virus survival in children after transmission. Arch Virol 165, 1279–1288 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-020-04597-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-020-04597-4

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