Background. During routine donor screening in the blood bank, it is not uncommon to find isolated reactivity for anti-HBc in the absence of detectable HBV DNA in a first donation but absence of reactivity to anti-HBc in subsequent donations, suggesting a false-positive result for anti-HBc. Study Design and Methods. The blood donor population was screened between January 2010 and October 2011. W...

We studied hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission among 7416 Thai children from 148 schools in Kamphaeng Phet province, a rural part of northern Thailand. Their age ranged from 2 to 16 years (median 9 years). Between May 1991 and June 1992, 61 of 2593 (2.4%) in the cohort of susceptible children acquired anti-HBc immunoglobulin. Forty-seven of the 148 schools had children who acquired anti-HBc. S...

AIM OF THE STUDY To determine the influence of HBsAg and HBeAg negative but anti-HBc positive status on the sustained virological response (SVR) rate in HCV-infected patients treated with pegylated interferon alfa 2 (Peg-IFNα-2) and ribavirin (RBV). MATERIAL AND METHODS The study was based on the retrospective analysis of medical records of HCV-infected patients who started Peg-IFNα and RBV t...

There is a critical need for therapeutic agents that can target the amino-terminal domain (NTD) of androgen receptor (AR) for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Calmodulin (CaM) binds to the AR NTD and regulates AR activity. We discovered that Hydrazinobenzoylcurcumin (HBC), which binds exclusively to CaM, inhibited AR activity. HBC abrogated AR interaction with CaM, ...

In mammals, protein arginine methyltransferase 5, PRMT5, is the main type II enzyme responsible for the majority of symmetric dimethylarginine formation in polypeptides. Recent study reported that PRMT5 restricts Hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication through epigenetic repression of HBV DNA transcription and interference with encapsidation of pregenomic RNA. Here we demonstrate that PRMT5 interac...

Hepatitis B core antigen (HBc Ag) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs Ag) were detected in the liver tissue of a patient with chronic aggressive hepatitis by the immunofluorescent complement technique. The presence of anti-HBc was examined by the same method in 67 human sera previously tested for HBs Ag, anti-HBs and s-GPT levels. HBc Ag was localized mainly in the nucleus and sometimes in the...

QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY The risk of transfusion-transmitted HBV remains significant in Switzerland, where routine screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV) in blood donations relies solely on serological hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) testing. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of anti-hepatitis B core (anti-HBc) and HBV nucleic acid testing (NAT) positive donations in two diffe...

The major immunodominant region (MIR) and N-terminus of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) core (HBc) protein were used to expose foreign insertions on the outer surface of HBc virus-like particles (VLPs). The additions to the HBc positively charged arginine-rich C-terminal (CT) domain are usually not exposed on the VLP surface. Here, we constructed a set of recombinant HBcG vectors in which CT argini...

Rapid counter-immunoelectrophoresis (CIE) and radioimmunoassay (RIA) methods for detecting antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) were used to screen nearly 8000 blood donors, including 919 prisoners. The prevalence of anti-HBc in prisoner donors (3.4%) was significantly higher than that in other donors (0.7%). The three HBsAg positive donors in the series were all anti-HBc positive an...