Understanding Amino Acid Mutations in Hepatitis B Virus Proteins for Rational Design of Vaccines and Drugs.

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome encodes four proteins, i.e., DNA polymerase, surface protein, X, and core proteins. HBV undergoes different selective pressures for drug resistance and immune/vaccine escape and mutations are common for the HBV proteins. We here collected all the reported amino acid mutations happened in these four HBV proteins and studied their patterns. The relationship between the mutations and epitopic functions are investigated with bioinformatics tools, based on their sequence information. Some interesting results are observed for the mutation patterns, such as we found the serine and threonine are both for frequently mutated residues and mutant residues, while the tryptophan and methionine have low mutability. The results provide important information for the understanding of the molecular mechanism of virus evolution and therefore will facilitate the future rational design of HBV vaccines or drugs.

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