Delta Agent and Hepatitis B

Excerpt

In 1977, Rizzetto and associates (1) reported an intriguing finding seen while staining liver biopsy specimens from patients whose sera were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The antiserum stained the nuclei of some specimens in which hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) could be shown by other means, but also stained specimens that could be shown not to contain HBcAg. This finding suggested that there were two distinct nuclear antigenic specificities and that the antiserum used contained two antibodies, one being anti-HBc. The authors proposed that this new antigen-antibody system be called delta.

During the subsequent 5 years much