J. Li et al., Mechanism of suppression of hepatitis B virus precore RNA transcription bya frequent double mutation, J VIROLOGY, 73(2), 1999, pp. 1239-1244
A double mutation which converts nucleotide 1765 from A to T and nucleotide
1767 from G to A is frequently found in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome
isolated from HBV patients with chronic hepatitis symptoms. This double mu
tation is located in the core promoter that controls the transcription of t
he precore RNA and the core RNA. In addition, this double mutation also res
ides in the X protein coding sequence, converting codon 130 from Lys to Met
and codon 131 from Val to Ile. Previous studies indicate that this double
mutation removes a nuclear receptor binding site in the core promoter, supp
resses specifically precore RNA transcription, and enhances viral replicati
on. In this study, we further investigated how this double mutation suppres
ses precore RNA transcription. We found that this double mutation not only
removed the nuclear receptor binding site but also created an HNF1 transcri
ption factor binding site. Further transfection studies using Huh7 hepatoma
cells indicate that the removal of the nuclear receptor binding site has n
o effect on the transcription of HBV RNAs, the two-codon change in the X pr
otein sequence suppresses the transcription of both precore and core RNAs,
and the creation of the HNF1 binding site restores the core RNA level. Henc
e, the specific suppression of precore RNA transcription by this frequent d
ouble-nucleotide mutation is the combined result of multiple factors.