Novel Therapies That May Cure Chronic Hepatitis B Virus

Abstract

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a member of the Hepadnaviridae family, which includes small DNA enveloped viruses that infect primates, rodents, and birds and is the causative factor of chronic hepatitis B. A common feature of all these viruses is their great specificity by species and cell type, as well as a peculiar genomic and replication organization similar to that of retroviruses. The HBV virion consists of an external lipid envelope and an internal icosahedral protein capsid containing the viral genome and a DNA polymerase, which also functions as a reverse transcriptase.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus; Immunomodulators; Inhibitors of viral replication; New anti-HBV therapy; Viral antigen inbibitors; Viral replication Inhibitors; Viral replication cycle; cccDNA.