3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item A retrospective study characterizing the complete s open reading frame of hepatitis B virus from black children with membranous nephropathy treated with interferon alpha-2b(2008-08-06T09:20:12Z) Gous, Natasha MyrnaABSTRACT In sub-Saharan Africa a causal relationship has been established between hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and membranous nephropathy (MN), especially in Black children. The most common method of treatment is interferon therapy, which is however, only effective in 30-40% of patients. The reason for this is unclear. The objective of this pilot study was to determine whether mutations in the complete surface gene of HBV isolated from Black children with HBV-associated MN before, during and after treatment with interferon, had any effect on treatment response and vice versa. HBV DNA was extracted from the serum of a responder, reverter and non-responder patient before, during (4 and 16 weeks) and after (40 weeks) IFN treatment. The preS1/preS2/S region was amplified and cloned, and the clones sequenced. Sequence analyses revealed the preS2 region to be the most variable in the reverter and non-responder and HBsAg was the most variable in the non-responder. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the viral population dynamics between the responder strains and the reverter/non-responder strains differed as a result of various mutations found within the surface gene. Thus the presence of mutations in preS2 and HBsAg of the non-responding patients may carry predictive markers for nonresponse but further investigation would be needed to conclusively prove this.