Correlation of polyalbumin receptors with hepatitis B surface antigen polypeptides in human sera.

The molecular nature of the association between hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), polymerized human serum albumin receptors (pHSA-R), and HBsAg polypeptides is controversial. Therefore, we studied HBsAg, HBeAg, and pHSA-R by radioimmunoassay in sera of 27 patients with acute or chronic hepatitis B virus infection. In addition, the HBsAg polypeptides were demonstrated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by silver staining and immunoblot analysis. As a group, HBeAg-positive sera contained significantly more HBsAg and higher pHSA-R activity than HBeAg-negative sera. At a given amount of HBsAg, pHSA-R activity was significantly higher in HBeAg-positive sera than in HBeAg-negative sera. However, there was no correlation between the presence or absence of a particular HBsAg polypeptide and pHSA-R activity, suggesting that posttranscriptional events such as glycosylation may modulate pHSA-R activity associated with native HBsAg.