Patent ID: 7807437

Claim:
A method of detecting Hepatitis B virus (HBV) variant in a biological sample, said HBV variant comprising at least one nucleotide mutation in the DNA polymerase gene at codon position 233 which results in a substitution of an isoleucine to any other amino acid, said method comprising the step of detecting the presence of a HBV polynucleic acid or a fragment of a HBV polynucleic acid in a biological sample, said HBV polynucleic acid or said fragment comprising a nucleotide mutation at codon position 233 that results in an amino acid substitution of an isoleucine of the DNA polymerase gene in the HBV variant to any other amino acid in the HBV variant, or the step of detecting the expression product of said HBV polynucleic acid or said fragment comprising said amino acid substitution.