ANALYSIS OF POINT MUTATION IN SITE 1896 OF HBV PRECORE AND ITS DETECTION IN THE TISSUES AND SERUM OF HCC PATIENTS

Aim The 3’-base specific polymerase chain reaction (3’- BS- PCR) method was es-tablished to investigate the relationship between the mutation of precore region of Hepatitis B virus(HBV) and the liver damage to the patients caused by HBV and the possibility of HBV precore gene in-tegration in liver cells。 Mdthods According to the DNA sequence of precore region of HBV,themethod of 3’- BS- PCR is applied to analyze the point mutation site 1896 of HBV precore in 126 clini-cal serum specimens and 23 hepatoeellular carcinoma (HCC) patients’ tissues and serum whose trmorshave been surgically excised and pathologically diagnosed.Rdsults The point mutation in site 1896 ofHBV precore has been successfully rates of preore gene of HBV in the 23 patients’ tissues and serum are52.2 % (12/23) and 30.4 % (7/23) respectively.Conclusion The established method for HBV ore-core mutation analysis is simple and results can well repeated.It has provided a new approach to clinicalHBV research and its relationship to liver damage.The results obtained suggested that HBV precoremutation exists in a wide range among serum and tissue of the patients infected by HBV and HCC pa-tients,and the pre-c gene of HBV can not be detected in the serum of 21.8% of the HCC patients(tissue HBV precore gene positive).We may deduce that there may be the integration of HBV precoregenee in the genome of liver cells,which may play an important role in the carcinogenesis of HCC.