Wu J C, Huang I A, Huang Y H, Chen J Y, Sheen I J
Department of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
J Med Virol. 1999 Jan;57(1):64-7.
Heterogeneity of hepatitis C viral (HCV) genomes results in escape from immune clearance. Super-infection or mixed infection of different genotypes of HCV are seen commonly in humans. Hepatitis D virus (HDV) is classified into 3 genotypes. This study was planned to investigate if mixed genotypes infection of HDV occurs in humans. HDV genotyping based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was used to screen 60-99 HDV clones from each case of 7 prostitutes and 11 patients. Mixed infections were diagnosed by the finding of two or more different RFLP patterns in a case and were confirmed by sequencing. Five prostitutes had mixed infections of genotypes IIa and IIb HDV, while only 2 patients had mixed infections of genotypes I and II HDV (P< 0.05). The heterogeneity in nucleotide sequence was generally below 2% among HDV quasi-species from the same subject, while the heterogeneity was 27.7% between genotypes I and II HDV, and 22.8% between genotypes IIa and IIb HDV from a subject with mixed infection. Multiple HDV clones from the spouses of the 2 index cases were also analyzed. One spouse had mixed infection and the other did not, corresponding to the index cases. In cases with mixed genotypes infections, the prevalence of the minor strain was less than 10% of the total colony population analyzed.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）基因组的异质性导致其逃避免疫清除。不同基因型HCV的超感染或混合感染在人类中很常见。丁型肝炎病毒（HDV）分为3个基因型。本研究旨在调查HDV混合基因型感染在人类中是否存在。基于限制性片段长度多态性（RFLP）的HDV基因分型被用于筛查7名妓女和11名患者中每例的60 - 99个HDV克隆。通过在一个病例中发现两种或更多不同的RFLP模式来诊断混合感染，并通过测序进行确认。5名妓女存在HDV IIa和IIb基因型的混合感染，而只有2名患者存在HDV I和II基因型的混合感染（P<0.05）。来自同一受试者的HDV准种之间核苷酸序列的异质性一般低于2%，而来自一名混合感染受试者的HDV I和II基因型之间的异质性为27.7%，IIa和IIb基因型之间的异质性为22.8%。还分析了2例索引病例配偶的多个HDV克隆。一名配偶存在混合感染，另一名不存在，与索引病例情况相符。在混合基因型感染的病例中，次要毒株的流行率低于所分析的总菌落群体的10%。
