Effect of S-region mutations on HBsAg in HBsAg-negative HBV-infected patients

Occult HBV infection (OBI) is a special form of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection that may cause Liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, causing significant harm to patients. Given the insidious nature of OBI, it is usually not easy to be detected. Most of the samples currently studied are concentrated on blood donors, however, patients in this special state have not been fully studied. This project aimed to study the effect of HBV S region mutations on HBsAg in patients with clinical OBI. Collect 107 HBsAg-/HBV DNA + blood samples from Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University from August 2022 to April 2023. Next, the successfully extracted and amplified HBV DNA S regions were sequenced. Construct mutant plasmids to verify the cell function of the high-frequency mutation sites and explore the possible molecular mechanism. Sixty-eight HBsAg-negative samples were sequenced, revealing high-frequency amino acid substitution sites in the HBV S protein, including immune escape mutations (i.e., sY100C、sK122R、sI126T、sT131P、and sS114T) and TMD (Transmembrane domain) region substitutions (i.e., sT5A、sG10D、sF20S、and sS3N). We constructed a portion of the mutant plasmids and found that sT5A, sF20S, sG10D, sS3N, sI68T, and sI126T single point mutations or combined mutations may decrease HBsAg expression or change the antigenicity of HBsAg leading to detection failure. HBsAg-negative patients may show various mutations and amino acid replacement sites at high frequency in the HBV S-region, and these mutations may lead to undetectable Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), HBsAg antigenic changes or secretion inhibition.