hepatitis for autoimmune disorders that are extremely im- portant in the case of antiviral therapy Corresponding author. Iulianna Lupasco Vlada. E-mail: flowercat_2004@yahoo.com HEPATITIS B VIRUS (HBV) GENOTYPE/SUB- GENOTYPE DISTRIBUTION AMONG HIV CO-INFECTED PATIENTS VARIES FROM HBV MONO-INFECTED PATIENTS FROM EASTERN INDIA: PREDOMINANCE OF HBV/D2 Ananya Pal, 1 Neelakshi Sarkar, 1 Manikankana Bandopadhyay, 1 Rajesh Panigrahi, 1 Avik Biswas, 1 Debraj Saha, 1 Subhashish Kamal Guha, 2 Bhibhuti Saha, 2 Sekhar Chakrabarti, 1 Runu Chakravarty 1 1 ICMR Virus Unit, Kolkata, India, 2 Department of Medicine, School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, India Background: HIV patients are at a risk of acquiring Hep- atitis B virus (HBV) co-infection due to shared modes of transmission between these two virus. In spite of having considerable prevalence of both the virus in India, study is scanty regarding HIV-HBV co-infection. Objective: To study the molecular epidemiology of HBV among HIV co-infected patients from eastern India. Methods: HBsAg/HBV DNA positive HIV-HBV co-in- fected samples (n=53) were included in this study and com- pared with HBV mono-infected samples (n=100). HBV and HIV serological markers were tested by commercial ELISA. HBV DNA was amplified by nested-PCR. Direct sequenc- ing was employed for phylogenetic analysis. Results: Among HIV-HBV co-infected patients prevalence of HBV/D genotype was significantly higher than in HBV mono-infected patients and distributed into four sub-geno- types (HBV/D1, HBV/D2, HBV/D3 and HBV/D5) in the phylogenetic tree. This increased prevalence of HBV/D was accounted for the significantly high proportion of HBV/ D2 among co-infected patients. These HBV/D2 isolates were associated with elevated ALT levels, higher HBeAg pos- itivity and increased viral load. To find the answer for this variation when we compared the sequences of these subjects with the isolates from different parts of India, interestingly, all the HBV/D3 isolates showed sequence similarity with HBV/D3 isolated from western India rather than eastern Indian isolates in the surface gene region. Whole genome se- quence analysis and phylogenetic analysis were also concor- dant. Though this sequence similarity was not clearly evident from surface gene region of HBV/D2 subjects, the BLAST search of whole genome HBV/D2 sequences con- firmed the finding from the HBV/D3 isolates. Conclusion: HIV co-infection might influence HBV diver- sity rendering significant impact on its natural history as well as in molecular epidemiology. Our results indicate possible acquisition of HBV infection during migration of labours, which might account for introduction of newer disease pattern in our community. Corresponding author. Runu Chakravarty. E-mail: runugc@gmail.com ASSOCIATION OF IL 28B HOST GENE POLYMORPHISMS WITH IFN RESPONSES IN HEPATITIS C VIRUS INFECTED PATIENTS FROM EASTERN AND NORTH-EASTERN INDIA Rushna Firdaus, 1 Kallol Saha, 1 Aritra Biswas, 1 Anirban Mukherjee, 1 Sujit Chowdhury, 2 Aritra Ghosh, 1 Anirban Chaudhuri, 1 Provashl Chandra Sadhukhan 1 1 ICMR Virus Unit, Kolkata; I.D and B.G Hospital Campus, GB-4 (East Wing), 1st Floor, 57, Dr. Suresh Chandra Banerjee Road, Beliaghata, Kolkata, India, 2 Dept. of Gastroenterology, AMRI Hospitals Salt lake, JC - 16 & 17, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, India Background: Genome wide association studies have con- firmed that SNPs at rs 12979860 C/T and rs 8099917 T/ G are strongly associated in the rate of Sustained Virolog- ical Response (SVR). The prediction of SVR in patients be- fore initiation of antiviral therapy is important to estimate the potential for treatment success. Objectives: a) To determine the prevalent viral as well as host genotypic frequencies present within different HCV infected population groups from Eastern and North East- ern part of India. b) To determine the potential effects of SNPs at rs1297960 and rs8099917 variation on outcome to HCV infection in a natural as well as IFN treated settings. Methods: One hundred and fifty HCV sero-reactive pa- tients from different population groups in Eastern and North Eastern part of India were assessed for host and viral genotypic analysis. 57 patients were administered Peg IFN- ribavirin therapy. The duration of therapy at either 24 or 48 weeks was decided according to the genotypes. Viral genotyping was performed using nested RT-PCR followed by direct sequencing methods. Host IL28B genotyping was performed using Real Time PCR based SNP analysis. Results: Out of 150 seropositive individuals, 73.33% (110) were found to be RNA positive, the mean age of the study participants was 34.75 years out of which 112 were males and 38 were females. HCV Gen 3 (65%) was found to be the major circulating strain in this region followed by Gen 1 (25%). Low prevalence of Gen-6 is emerging in North East as well as in Kolkata. Among HCV gen 3, 3b is the major (58%), 3a is 42%. Within HCV Gen 1, 1a is 40% whereas 1b is 60%. The frequency of CC genotype reported to be associated with HCV clearance at rs1297960 was found to be high at 73.33% compared to CT (25.33%). The JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL HEPATOLOGY Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hepatology | March 2013 | Vol. 3 | No. 1S | S43–S74 S59 Viral Hepatitis