AUTHOR=Xiang Kuanhui , Xiao Yiwei , Li Yao , He Lingyuan , Wang Luwei , Zhuang Hui , Li Tong 

TITLE=The Effect of the Hepatitis B Virus Surface Protein Truncated sC69∗ Mutation on Viral Infectivity and the Host Innate Immune Response

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2019

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01341

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2019.01341

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=Viruses could rapidly diversify into variants, which has long been known to facilitate viral adaption in the host. Recent studies showed that cooperation among variants and wild-type (WT) also increased viral fitness. Here, a mutant of sC69* in small hepatitis B surface protein (SHBs) that resulted in premature stop was investigated and the frequency of sC69* was 4.37% (19/435), most of which coexisted with the WT (78.95%, 15/19), indicating mixed viral populations. Functional studies showed that sC69* mutant was associated with lower viral spread, but could be rescued by coexisting with the WT. The sC69* mutant showed to attenuate host innate immune response during infection and poly (I:C) treatment such as IL29, ISG15 and RIG-I (p<0.05). The lower immune response was not caused by the lower replication of sC69* mutant. Our data provide information that sC69* coexisting with the WT might facilitate the fitness and persistence of the viral quasispecies in the host.