The antiviral drug selected hepatitis B virus rtA181T/sW172* mutant has a dominant negative secretion defect and alters the typical profile of viral rebound
Nadia Warner, Stephen Locarnini – 20 June 2008 – The hepatitis B virus (HBV) mutation that encodes rtA181T is selected in the viral polymerase during antiviral drug therapy and can also encode a stop codon in the overlapping surface gene at amino acid 172 (sW172*) resulting in truncation of the last 55 amino acids of the C‐terminal hydrophobic region of the surface proteins. This mutation is usually detected as a mixed population with wild‐type HBV.