HBV RNA is a predictive marker for HBeAg loss during antiviral treatment with nucleoside/nucleotide analogues in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection

Aims: Treatment with NUCs can completely suppress HBV DNA levels in most patients, however there are few markers for the prediction of long term response. Circulating HBV mRNA particles can be detected in the serum (Su et al., 2001). We studied the association of treatment response with serum levels of full-length (fl) and truncated (tr)HBV mRNA. Methods: For specific detection and quantification of fl and trRNA species, two step real-time reverse transcription PCRs were developed (detection limit 450 and 600 copies/mL, respectively). Plasmid based positive controls and internal controls were generated for the a…