Triyatni, M.Ey, P.Tran, T.Le Mire, M.Qiao, M.Burrell, C.Jilbert, A.2007-05-112007-05-112001Journal of General Virology, 2001; 82(Part 2):373-3780022-13171465-2099http://hdl.handle.net/2440/28084© 2001 Society for General MicrobiologyThe genome of an Australian strain of duck hepatitis B virus (AusDHBV) was cloned from a pool of congenitally DHBV-infected-duck serum, fully sequenced and found by phylogenetic analyses to belong to the ‘Chinese’ DHBV branch of the avian hepadnaviruses. Sequencing of the Pre-S/S gene of four additional AusDHBV clones demonstrated that the original clone (pBL4.8) was representative of the virus present in the pool, and a head-to-tail dimer of the clone was infectious when inoculated into newly hatched ducks. When the published sequences of 20 avian hepadnaviruses were compared, substitutions or deletions in the polymerase (POL) gene were most frequent in the 500 nt segment encoding the ‘spacer’ domain that overlaps with the Pre-S domain of the Pre-S/S gene in a different reading frame. In contrast, substitutions and deletions were rare within the adjacent segment that encodes the reverse transcriptase domain of the POL protein and the S domain of the envelope protein, presumably because they are more often deleterious.enAnimalsDucksGeeseHepatitis B Virus, DuckViral ProteinsCloning, MolecularPhylogenyProtein Structure, TertiaryMutationGenome, ViralMolecular Sequence DataAustraliaJournal article002001066310.1099/0022-1317-82-2-3730001666976000132-s2.0-003514417761878Burrell, C. [0000-0002-4020-349X]Jilbert, A. [0000-0003-3855-1679]