Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2021; 27(41): 7144-7158
Published online Nov 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i41.7144
Cross-sectional evaluation of circulating hepatitis B virus RNA and DNA: Different quasispecies?
Selene Garcia-Garcia, Maria Francesca Cortese, David Tabernero, Josep Gregori, Marta Vila, Beatriz Pacín, Josep Quer, Rosario Casillas, Laura Castillo-Ribelles, Roser Ferrer-Costa, Ariadna Rando-Segura, Jesús Trejo-Zahínos, Tomas Pumarola, Ernesto Casis, Rafael Esteban, Mar Riveiro-Barciela, Maria Buti, Francisco Rodríguez-Frías
Selene Garcia-Garcia, Maria Francesca Cortese, Marta Vila, Beatriz Pacín, Rosario Casillas, Laura Castillo-Ribelles, Roser Ferrer-Costa, Ernesto Casis, Francisco Rodríguez-Frías, Clinical Biochemistry Research Group, Department of Biochemistry, Vall d'Hebron Institut Recerca-Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Selene Garcia-Garcia, Maria Francesca Cortese, David Tabernero, Josep Gregori, Beatriz Pacín, Josep Quer, Rafael Esteban, Mar Riveiro-Barciela, Maria Buti, Francisco Rodríguez-Frías, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid 28029, Spain
Josep Gregori, Josep Quer, Liver Unit, Liver Disease Laboratory-Viral Hepatitis, Vall d'Hebron Institut Recerca-Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Ariadna Rando-Segura, Francisco Rodríguez-Frías, Liver Pathology Unit, Departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Ariadna Rando-Segura, Jesús Trejo-Zahínos, Tomas Pumarola, Department of Microbiology, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Rafael Esteban, Mar Riveiro-Barciela, Maria Buti, Liver Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona 08035, Spain
Author contributions: Rodríguez-Frías F, Pumarola T and Esteban R designed the research; Cortese MF and Tabernero D equally coordinated the research; Garcia-Garcia S and Quer J designed the experiments; Garcia-Garcia S, Vila M, Pacín B and Casillas R and Castillo-Ribelles L performed the experiments; Cortese MF, Tabernero D, Garcia-Garcia S and Gregori J analyzed data acquired during the experiments and interpreted the results; Garcia-Garcia S and Tabernero D drafted the manuscript; Ferrer-Costa R, Rando-Segura A, Trejo-Zahínos J, Casis E, Riveiro-Barciela M, Buti M and Rodríguez-Frías F critically reviewed the manuscript.
Supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, No. PI18/01436; and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (PR(AG)146/2020) and all patients provided written informed consent for participation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors have no conflict of interest for this manuscript.
Data sharing statement: Next-generation sequencing data were submitted to the GenBank SRA database (BioProject accession number PRJNA625435).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: David Tabernero, PhD, Postdoc, Research Scientist, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Calle de Melchor Fernández Almagro, 3, Madrid 28029, Spain.david.tabernero@ciberehd.org
Received: July 8, 2021
Peer-review started: July 8, 2021
First decision: August 19, 2021
Revised: August 20, 2021
Accepted: October 18, 2021
Article in press: October 18, 2021
Published online: November 7, 2021
Processing time: 120 Days and 18.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) quasispecies composition and its evolution are related to liver disease progression. HBV-RNA in serum is potentially useful for analyzing viral quasispecies, even in patients with low levels of or suppressed serum HBV-DNA. Few studies have analyzed circulating HBV-RNA quasispecies, and similarities and differences with DNA quasispecies should be assessed. We used next-generation sequencing to analyze RNA quasispecies variability/conservation and complexity, without interference of HBV-DNA, in untreated chronic hepatitis B patients. Comparison of both quasispecies showed similar results between them. DNA quasispecies tended toward greater complexity, while RNA quasispecies tended toward higher variability.