Molecular characterization of the hepatitis B virus genotypes A/B/D: A Bayesian methods of evolutionary analysis

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) can cause lots of people death and as a big health problem. The infectious virion has an inner "core particle", and this particle is made up of 180~240 copies hepatitis B core antigen(HbcAg), wihch enclose viral genome. In this study, we made molecular characterization of HBV genotypes through Bayesian analyses to estimate the time of the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of the four HBV/ABD genotypes. We estimate the rates of evolution of HBV core protein gene is 2.274 (0.925-1.329, 95%HPD) 10-3 substitutions per site per year, TMRCA of HBV/A/B/D genotypes are 31.195 (25.68-38.07), 34.478 (27.64-42.74) and 18.559 (8.27-27.19), and demographic histories of HbcAg gene showing that the relative genetic diversity has a sharp increase in the first appearing 5 years.