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World J Hepatol. May 28, 2015; 7(9): 1282-1286
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i9.1282
Key role of hepatitis B virus mutation in chronic hepatitis B development to hepatocellular carcinoma
Xin Zhang, Hui-Guo Ding
Xin Zhang, Hui-Guo Ding, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Beijing You’an Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China
Author contributions: Zhang X contributed to the data collection and preparing the manuscript; Ding HG was responsible for this project and the final manuscript.
Supported by The Capital Science and Technology Development Foundation, Major Projects on Infectious Disease, No. 2012ZX1002-008-05; High-Level Talent Academic Leader Training Program, No. 2011-2-19; Capital Science and Tchnology Development Fund, No. 2014-1-2181.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no other financial interests or conflict with the subject or materials and results in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hui-Guo Ding, MD, PhD, Director of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Beijing You’an Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University, Fengtai District, Beijing 100069, China. dinghuiguo@medmail.com.cn
Telephone: +86-10-83997155 Fax: +86-10-63295525
Received: November 28, 2014
Peer-review started: November 28, 2014
First decision: January 8, 2015
Revised: January 19, 2015
Accepted: March 16, 2015
Article in press: March 18, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Abstract

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The HBV mutations, which include point mutation, deletion, insertion and truncation mutation of HBV gene in 4 open reading frames (S, C, P, X), are closely associated with HCC pathogenesis. Some mutations accumulated during chronic HBV infection could be regarded as a biomarker to predict the occurrence of HCC. The detection of the mutations in clinical practice could be helpful for defining better preventive and therapeutic strategies and, moreover, predicting the progression of liver disease.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus, Mutations, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Carcinogenesis, Chronic hepatitis B

Core tip: This mini review fully describes the relationship between hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome mutations in different regions with liver disease progression and development to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) according to the recent data of mutations in chronic hepatitis B patients. Accordingly, the HBV mutations, either in the preS or PreC or/and core promoter region, are significantly associated with HCC and could be regarded as a biomarker to predict the occurrence of HCC.