The nature of hepatitis B e antigen

In recent years, considerable interest has developed in recognizing antigenic specificities additional to the surface antigen in the sera of patients infected with hepatitis B infection. The presence of the e-antigen appears to be invariably associated with ongoing virus replication. In the present study, sera from acute and chronically infected patients have been examined for both e-antigen and antibody, and the results correlated with the presence of complete 42-nm virus particles. In addition, some preliminary results illustrating the possible physicochemical nature of e-antigen are presented.