Prevalence of HGV infection and homology of different HGV strains in Southern China
Objectives To investigate the prevalence of hepatitis G virus (HGV) infection and to analyse the homology of different HGV strains in Southern China. Methods A total of 1991 sera from different groups in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Yunnan were detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR). The nucleotide sequences of 5' untranslated region (5' UTR) derived from 20 strains and NS5 region from 3 strains were determined. Results The positive rate of HGV RNA was 0.78% 1.34% in society population, 2.52% 2.90% in blood donors, 17.86% in intravenous drug users (IVDUs), 14.34% in patients with hemodialysis, 14.48% in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 25.30% in non A E hepatitis, 7.22% in hepatitis B, 8.33% 16.13% in hepatitis C, 41.67% in patients with bone marrow transplantation (BMT), respectively. The homology was 90.40% 100% in 5' UTR between different strains. The homology of NS5 region was 93.3% 94% in nucleotide sequence, 97% 99.2% in amino acid sequence. Conclusions The HGV infection rates among populations having accepted bone marrow transplantation, hemodialysis, and patients with hepatitis B, non A E hepatitis, hepatitis C and hepatocellular carcinoma as well as the intravenous drug abusers were high. Sequence variation in different strains were associated with geographical factors. No apparent variation between different strains from different groups in Southern China and no mutation in same patient over a period of 3 months were observed. Some highly conserved and relatively variable areas were seen.