BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) served as a vital role in the life cycle of the virus and persistent infection. However, specific and quantitative methods for cccDNA detection have not been available. OBJECTIVES Our aim was to develop and primarily evaluate a quantitative method for HBV cccDNA based on magnetic capture hybridization and quantitative ...

Covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) of hepadnaviruses exists as an episomal minichromosome in the nucleus of infected hepatocyte and serves as the transcriptional template for viral mRNA synthesis. Elimination of cccDNA is the prerequisite for either a therapeutic cure or immunological resolution of HBV infection. Although accumulating evidence suggests that inflammatory cytokines-mediated ...

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection puts more than 250 million people at a greatly increased risk to develop end-stage liver disease. Like all hepadnaviruses, HBV replicates via protein-primed reverse transcription of a pregenomic (pg) RNA, yielding an unusually structured, viral polymerase-linked relaxed-circular (RC) DNA as genome in infectious particles. Upon infection, RC-DNA is conve...

BACKGROUND Intrahepatic hepatitis B virus (HBV) covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is the original template for HBV replication. The persistence of cccDNA is responsible for the recurrence of HBV infection. The detection of cccDNA can help the development of new antiviral drugs against HBV replication links, and reduce the resistance and recurrence as well as to discover extrahepatic HBV i...

Virus persistence in chronic hepatitis B patients is due to the sustaining level of covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) within the nuclei of infected hepatocytes. In this study, we used a modified 1.3-fold hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome, with a BclI genetic marker embedded in the redundancy region, to examine the transcriptional activity of cccDNA and the effect of the HBx protein on transc...

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of 48-week entecavir therapy on serum and intrahepatic hepatitis B virus, covalently closed circular DNA (HBV cccDNA) levels in hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive patients. A total of 120 patients with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis were treated with entecavir for 48 weeks. Serum HBV markers, total HBV DNA, and HBV cccDNA levels were measured...

Covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) forms a template for the replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and duck HBV (DHBV). Recent studies suggest that activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) functions in innate immunity, although its molecular mechanism of action remains unclear, particularly regarding HBV restriction. Here we demonstrated that overexpression of chicken AID caused hypermu...

Hallmarks of the hepadnavirus replication cycle are the formation of covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) and the reverse transcription of a pregenomic RNA (pgRNA) in core particles leading to synthesis of the relaxed circular DNA (rcDNA) genome. cccDNA, the template for viral RNA transcription, is the basis for the persistence of these viruses in infected hepatocytes. In this review, we sum...

We have previously shown that hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication is controlled by noncytolytic mechanisms that depend primarily on the effector functions of the CD8(+) T cell response, especially the production of IFN-gamma in the liver. The mechanisms that control the nuclear pool of viral covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) transcriptional template of HBV, which must be eliminated to era...

Hepatitis B virus (hepadnavirus) infections are maintained by the presence of a small and regulated number of episomal viral genomes [covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA)] in the nuclei of infected cells. Although a number of studies have measured the mean copy number of cccDNA molecules in hepadnaviral-infected cells, the distribution of individual copy numbers have not been reported. Using...