Slagle Betty L, Bouchard Michael J
Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2016 Jan 8;6(3):a021402. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a021402.
The efficient replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV) requires the HBV regulatory hepatitis B virus X (HBx) protein. The exact contributions of HBx are not fully understood, in part because of the limitations of the assays used for its study. When HBV replication is driven from a plasmid DNA, the contribution of HBx is modest. However, there is an absolute requirement for HBx in assays that recapitulate the infectious virus life cycle. There is much evidence that HBx can contribute directly to HBV replication by acting on viral promoters embedded within protein coding sequences. In addition, HBx may also contribute indirectly by modulating cellular pathways to benefit virus replication. Understanding the mechanism(s) of HBx action during virus replication may provide insight into novel ways to disrupt chronic HBV replication.
乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）的高效复制需要HBV调节蛋白乙型肝炎病毒X蛋白（HBx）。HBx的确切作用尚未完全明确，部分原因在于用于研究它的检测方法存在局限性。当从质粒DNA驱动HBV复制时，HBx的作用较小。然而，在模拟传染性病毒生命周期的检测中，对HBx有绝对需求。有大量证据表明，HBx可通过作用于嵌入蛋白质编码序列中的病毒启动子直接促进HBV复制。此外，HBx还可能通过调节细胞途径间接发挥作用，以利于病毒复制。了解病毒复制过程中HBx的作用机制可能为破坏慢性HBV复制的新方法提供思路。
