Identification of hepatitis B virus genotype I in Thailand

Abstract

The rare hepatitis B virus genotype I (HBV‐I) classification includes complex A/G/C/U recombinants identified amongst the individuals from China, India, Laos, and Vietnam. Herein we report the first HBV‐I specimen from Thailand, with detectable HBsAg despite a 10–amino‐acid truncation. This HBV‐I genome has a similar recombinant pattern to reference strains, including a C region that branches basal to references, suggesting a premodern era recombination event gave rise to HBV‐I. With an average sequence divergence from other genotypes ranging from 7.66% (standard deviation [SD], 0.42%; C) to 14.27% (SD, 0.31%; H), this new genome supports the HBV‐I classification as a unique genotype.

Concealed for a Long Time on the Marches of Empires: Hepatitis B Virus Genotype I

“…The clinical case of genotype I is almost empty, as there are no large series of patients depicting the presentation of infection with this virus available in the literature. Patients are often published as case reports, making difficult the elaboration of a relevant presentation of genotype-I-associated disease [ 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 47 ].…”

“…More precisely, genotype I is endemic to eastern continental Asia, as it wa so far in the insular countries of the area (Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia Brunei, and Timor Leste) [1]. Currently, its north-to-south distribution sp Northwestern China (Xibei, including Shaanxi province) to Thailand and Vi from west to east from Arunachal Pradesh in East India to the Guangxi auto gion in South Central (Zhongnan) China [4,5,8,9,21,[36][37][38]. In practice, geno found in five countries: Vietnam, Laos, India, China, and Thailand (Figure 5 the presence of genotype I was reported from Sichuan, Shaanxi, Yunnan, an while, in India, it was found only in Arunachal Pradesh.…”