Hepatitis B virus (HBV) cccDNA replicative but not transcriptional activity is significantly impaired in the liver of HBeAg-negative patients

Background/Aim: Knowledge of factors regulating covalently circular closed DNA (cccDNA) pool size and hepatitis B virus (HBV) production may help understanding mechanisms of viral clearance. To evaluate activity of cccDNA in chronically infected (CH-B) patients, we analysed serological parameters (HBV-DNA titres and HBsAg), as well as intrahepatic HBV DNA and RNA species in HBeAg-positive and HBeAg-negative patients. Methods: Sera and liver needle biopsy tissues from 80 CH-B patients. HBV transcript-specific primers were used to reverse transcribe pregenomic and sub-genomic HBV RNAs, as well as to quantify by re…