Antiviral strategies in chronic hepatitis B virus infection: I. Establishment of an in vitro system using the duck hepatitis B virus model

✍ Scribed by Naomi Bishop; Gilda Civitico; Yanyan Wang; Kejian Guo; Chris Birch; Ian Gust; Dr. Stephen Locarnini

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 947 KB
• Volume: 31
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/jmv.1890310204

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Primary duck hepatocyte (PDH) cultures were established from ducklings congenitally infected with the duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV), plated onto feeder cell layers of irradiated human embryonic lung fibroblasts, and observed for 2 to 3 weeks. This system permitted the survival of the PDH in a differentiated form free of fibroblastic overgrowth for at least 3 weeks. The hepatocytes were shown to contain all the replicative DNA intermediates found during DHBV replication as well as the DHBV structural proteins PRE‐S1, PRE‐S2, and S of duck hepatitis B surface antigen (DHBsAg). The pool of supercoiled (SC) DHBV DNA increased dramatically from days 10 to 14 postplating. This PDH‐feeder cell layer cell culture model provides a convenient system to study the effects of conventional inhibitors of DHBV replication and compounds targeted at the supercoiled form of DHBV DNA. This approach should allow the evaluation of a variety of strategies for treating chronic carriers of hepadnaviruses.