They are very strongly positive for the lectin IB4, as well as CD45

ree Cp, led to depletion of cccDNA-bound Cp and decreased production of viral RNA and proteins. Another mechanism believed to deplete cccDNA-bound Cp, the E3 ubiquitin ligase NIRF1, also leads to suppression of cccDNA activity. Together these data suggest, but do not provide a mechanistic connection, that HBV Cp contributes to epigenetic regulation of cccDNA, which in turn contributes to its longevity. Cp is also implicated in the destruction of cccDNA. Interferon is established as a therapeutic agent that can clear HBV infection, presumably at the epigenetic level, but only shows efficacy in a subset of patients ). In a study of the mechanism of action of immunomodulators, Lucifora and colleagues found evidence indicating that the cytidine deaminase APOBEC3A was recruited to cccDNA by direct interaction with cccDNA-bound Cp. This remarkable discovery raises the question of why an HBV protein would recruit a virus-suppressive protein. Cp may also recruit NIRF1 to regulate both Cp stability and histone modification. To speculate: perhaps Cp functions to maintain a homeostatic chronic infection. These sets of results indicate that Cp has a cccDNA regulatory function. Author MK886 web Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Cp assembly In vivo, assembly of HBV core by Cp is coordinated with specific packaging of viral pgRNA and P protein. In vitro, the truncated version of the core protein, comprising only the assembly domain, Cp149, is able to spontaneously assemble into capsids, which are morphologically indistinguishable from capsids purified from HBV expressing cells. In vitro assembly occurs as a function of protein concentration, temperature and ionic strength. The arginine-rich C-terminal domain of Cp contributes to specific packaging of pgRNA but is dispensable for assembly of capsids. Thermodynamic stability of capsid can be described in terms of two related parameters, the pairwise association energy between two dimers and the pseudo-critical concentration,. At equilibrium, the concentrations of capsid and free dimer allow calculation of capsid association energy: Gcapsid=-RT ln, where R is the gas constant and T is the temperature in Kelvin. Gcapsid is the sum of all 240 pairwise contacts plus a relatively small term accounting for capsid symmetry: Gcontact Gcapsid/240. KD,apparent is directly measurable from experiments, but is Antiviral Res. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 September 01. Zlotnick et al. Page 6 proportional to association also 2Gcontact). In practical terms, at equilibrium, for any reaction with initial above KD,appareant, the dimer concentration remains almost constant at KD,apparent and all additional Cp assembles into capsid. From the temperature dependence of HBV capsid assembly it can be concluded that assembly is driven by entropy, consistent with burial of hydrophobic surface as shown in crystal structures. Loss of hydrophobic areas at Cp inter-dimer interface creates weak hydrophobic interactions, around -3 kcal/mol, corresponding to a millimolar dissociation constant. The weak hydrophobic interactions are sufficient to form stable capsids because each dimer is tetravalent, binding four neighboring subunits. In part because of the barrier to breaking four bonds to PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1985460 release bound dimers, the intact capsid is resistant to disassembly. Kinetics of assembly are complicated because building one virion requires many components and many steps. In vitro capsid assembly starts with a slow n