EPITOPES OF HEPATITIS-B VIRUS ENVELOPE - STRUCTURAL APPROACH

Hepatitis B is a major public health problem. More than 300 million pe ople are chronically infected by the virus. During infection very larg e quantities of complete virions and empty envelopes, consisting of sp herical or filamentous lipoprotein particles, are present in the blood . DNA genome coding for envelopes is divided into three domains, preS1 , preS2 and S. All available data suggest that the preS1 and preS2 pro ducts are exposed at the surface of the virions. These proteins are mo re immunogenic than S in terms of in vivo antibody response and the nu mber of epitopes identified. The three dimensional mapping of antigeni c sites of the HBV will provide important strategic information for va ccine development and identification of targets for immunorecognition or immunoregulation of the disease.