IMPORTANCE OF THE C-TERMINUS OF THE HEPATITIS-B VIRUS PRECORE PROTEININ SECRETION OF HBE ANTIGEN

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) e antigen (HBeAg) is a 15 kDa soluble anti gen derived from a precursor protein (precore protein) by two processi ng events, cleavage of the N-terminal signal peptide and cleavage of t he C-terminal 34 amino acids. So far, the role of the C-terminal seque nces in secretion has not been analysed in full. In this study deletio n of the last 60 amino acids was found to abrogate HBeAg secretion whe reas deletions of the last 10, 25 or 39 amino acids decreased its secr etion rate. These data demonstrate that C-terminal precore protein seq uences are crucial for HBe secretion and determine its secretion rate.