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A novel hepatitis B virus subgenotype, D7, in Tunisian blood donors

If H. A. Barnes^1,

¹ Division of Transfusion Medicine, Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Blood Centre, Long Road, Cambridge CB2 0PT, UK
² Tunisian National Blood Centre, Tunis, Tunisia

Correspondence
Birgit H. M. Meldal
bhmm2{at}cam.ac.uk

Tunisia is a medium-level epidemic country for hepatitis B virus (HBV). This study characterizes, for the first time, full genome HBV strains from Tunisia. Viral load quantification and phylogenetic analyses of full genome or pre-S/S sequences were performed on 196 hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive plasma samples from Tunisian blood donors. The median viral load was 64.65 IU ml^–1 (range <5–7.7x10⁸ IU ml^–1) and 89 % of samples had viral loads below 10 000 IU ml^–1. Fifty-nine strains formed a novel subgenotype D7, 41 strains clustered in subgenotype D1, seven strains in subgenotype A2 and one strain in genotype C. The novel subgenotype D7 was defined by maximum Bayesian posterior probability, a genetic divergence from other HBV/D subgenotypes by >4 % and a stronger HBV/E signal in the X to core genes than subgenotype D1. In conclusion, HBV/D is dominant in asymptomatic Tunisian HBsAg carriers and a novel subgenotype, D7, was the most common subgenotype found in this population.

Present address: The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Morgan Building N306, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridgeshire CB10 1SA, UK.

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers of sequences derived in this paper are FJ904328–FJ904393 (pre-SS) and FJ904394–FJ904447 (full genome).

A supplementary figure is available with the online version of this paper.

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