Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B Virus—from Basic Concepts to Therapeutic Targets

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Virology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 14433

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Medicine D and the Liver Institute, Rabin Medical Center Beilinson hospital and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Interests: hepatology; viral hepatitis; liver disease

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA
Interests: hepatology; viral hepatitis; liver disease; innate immunity; antivirals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since its discovery, more than half a century ago, hepatitis B virus (HBV) has attracted the attention of clinicians and molecular virologists not only due to its significant impact on human health worldwide, but also due to the challenging task of investigating this small and yet complicated virus. For many years, the lack of appropriate molecular tools and animal models to study the virus was a major obstacle that slowed down the field. However, in recent years, seminal discoveries regarding major steps in the virus life cycle, such as its entry step and cccDNA regulation, not only enabled the development of more sophisticated tools for studying HBV, but also enhanced the efforts to find effective therapies that are able to eliminate the virus, rather than only suppress its replication.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather the most updated information regarding the molecular biology of HBV and to connect the dots tying this information to present and future targets for curative anti-HBV therapies. We would like to invite researchers to submit their research or review articles on HBV concerning different aspects of its life cycle, with emphasis on exploiting basic concepts in HBV molecular virology for better therapeutic tools.

Dr. Amir Shlomai
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • hepatitis B virus
  • molecular virology
  • viral hepatitis
  • cccDNA
  • functional cure
  • viral replication
  • animal models
  • liver

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

17 pages, 744 KiB  
Review
Hepatitis B Core-Related Antigen and New Therapies for Hepatitis B
by Takehisa Watanabe, Takako Inoue and Yasuhito Tanaka
Microorganisms 2021, 9(10), 2083; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9102083 - 2 Oct 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3766
Abstract
The hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg) is an unprecedented novel HBV biomarker that plays an essential role in reflecting covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) because its levels correlate with intrahepatic cccDNA and serum HBV DNA. In this review, [...] Read more.
The hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg) is an unprecedented novel HBV biomarker that plays an essential role in reflecting covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) because its levels correlate with intrahepatic cccDNA and serum HBV DNA. In this review, we describe the clinical application of serum HBcrAg in CHB patients, with a particular focus on new therapies targeting intrahepatic HBV replication. (1) HBcrAg can be detected in clinical cases where serum HBV DNA is undetectable during anti-HBV therapy. (2) A highly sensitive HBcrAg assay (iTACT-HBcrAg) may be useful for monitoring HBV reactivation, as an alternative to HBV DNA. (3) Decreased HBcrAg levels have been significantly associated with promising outcomes in CHB patients, reducing the risk of progression or recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Additionally, we focus on and discuss several drugs in development that target HBV replication, and monitoring HBcrAg may be useful for determining the therapeutic efficacies of such novel drugs. In conclusion, HBcrAg, especially when measured by the recently developed iTACT-HBcrAg assay, may be the most appropriate surrogate marker, over other HBV biomarkers, to predict disease progression and treatment response in CHB patients. Full article
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30 pages, 5694 KiB  
Review
Hepatitis B Virus DNA Integration, Chronic Infections and Hepatocellular Carcinoma
by Maria Bousali, George Papatheodoridis, Dimitrios Paraskevis and Timokratis Karamitros
Microorganisms 2021, 9(8), 1787; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9081787 - 23 Aug 2021
Cited by 33 | Viewed by 9620
Abstract
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is an Old World virus with a high mutation rate, which puts its origins in Africa alongside the origins of Homo sapiens, and is a member of the Hepadnaviridae family that is characterized by a unique viral replication cycle. [...] Read more.
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is an Old World virus with a high mutation rate, which puts its origins in Africa alongside the origins of Homo sapiens, and is a member of the Hepadnaviridae family that is characterized by a unique viral replication cycle. It targets human hepatocytes and can lead to chronic HBV infection either after acute infection via horizontal transmission usually during infancy or childhood or via maternal–fetal transmission. HBV has been found in ~85% of HBV-related Hepatocellular Carcinomas (HCC), and it can integrate the whole or part of its genome into the host genomic DNA. The molecular mechanisms involved in the HBV DNA integration is not yet clear; thus, multiple models have been described with respect to either the relaxed-circular DNA (rcDNA) or the double-stranded linear DNA (dslDNA) of HBV. Various genes have been found to be affected by HBV DNA integration, including cell-proliferation-related genes, oncogenes and long non-coding RNA genes (lincRNAs). The present review summarizes the advances in the research of HBV DNA integration, focusing on the evolutionary and molecular side of the integration events along with the arising clinical aspects in the light of WHO’s commitment to eliminate HBV and viral hepatitis by 2030. Full article
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