Duck hepatitis B virus can tolerate insertion, deletion, and partial frameshift mutation in the distal pre-S region. |
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Authors: | J S Li L Cova R Buckland V Lambert G Delage and C Trpo |
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Institution: | Unité de Recherche sur les Hepatites, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U 271, Lyon, France. |
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Abstract: | In-frame and frameshift mutations were introduced into the pre-S region (1,212 base pairs) of duck hepatitis B virus. The in-frame mutants retained the inserted 12 nucleotides, while the frameshift mutants either reverted to wild type or exhibited a 10-nucleotide compensatory deletion downstream of the original mutation site. Thus, although duck hepatitis B virus has a compact and highly economical genome organization, it can replicate despite alterations of up to 9 amino acid codons in the pre-S and P open reading frames. |
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