Monjardino J P, Saldanha J A
Department of Medicine, St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London.
Br Med Bull. 1990 Apr;46(2):399-407. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a072406.
Delta hepatitis virus is a new human pathogen always found associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) causing both fulminant hepatitis and the accelerated progression of pre-existing HBV hepatitis. The virus is coated in HBsAg and contains circular single stranded RNA genome with very high intramolecular base-pairing, similar to the genomes of plant viroids, and the HDV antigen, a specific marker of HDV infection also found in the nuclei of infected hepatocytes. The genome is about 1700 nucleotides long and of minus polarity with a major constant antigenomic Open Reading Frame (ORF) which codes for the antigen. Replication of viral RNA appears to proceed by a rolling circle mechanism and specific self-cleavage and self-ligation of both genomic and antigenomic HDV RNA strands has been demonstrated in vitro. HDV appears to require HBsAg for its propagation and hepatotropism but not to depend on HBV for replication.
丁型肝炎病毒是一种新发现的人类病原体，总是与乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）同时出现，可导致暴发性肝炎以及使已有的HBV肝炎加速进展。该病毒被包裹在乙肝表面抗原（HBsAg）中，含有环状单链RNA基因组，分子内碱基配对程度很高，类似于植物类病毒的基因组，还含有丁型肝炎病毒抗原，这是丁型肝炎病毒感染的特异性标志物，也可在受感染肝细胞的细胞核中发现。该基因组长度约为1700个核苷酸，呈负链极性，有一个主要的恒定反基因组开放阅读框（ORF），可编码该抗原。病毒RNA的复制似乎通过滚环机制进行，并且在体外已证实基因组和反基因组丁型肝炎病毒RNA链均存在特异性自我切割和自我连接。丁型肝炎病毒似乎需要乙肝表面抗原以实现其传播和嗜肝性，但复制并不依赖于乙型肝炎病毒。
