Abstract: The analysis of nucleotide sequences (codon 27-100) of HBV DNA in anti-
HBe positive sera showed that there were two hypervariable segments of codon 31-49 and codon 87-97, where amino acid substitutions of
L31I,
S49T,
S87G/N,
K96N and
I87F/1 frequently occurred regardless of the presence or absence of the mutation in the
pre-core region.