METHOD OF JUDGING PRE-C MUTATION OF HEPATITIS B VIRUS

摘要

A method of judging pre-C mutation of hepatitis B virus accurately in a short time by a simplified operation, which method comprises designing a primer set by introducing a mismatching base in the vicinity of a pre-C mutation site of a hepatitis B virus genome DNA in such a manner as to make it possible to amplify a given region containing the pre-C mutation site and to give a restriction enzyme cleavage pattern which varies according to whether or not the mutation has occured in the amplified DNA, using the primer set to amplify the DNA by the polymerase chain reaction, and inspecting the pattern of cleavage by the restriction enzyme specific for the mutation, thus judging the pre-C mutation of hepatitis B virus or determining the percentage of the viruses thus mutated.