[Regulation of microRNA-122 on HBV replication by targeting HBx sequence]

In order to find microRNA associated with HBV infection and to explore the mechanism of the infection, first of all, we found in our preliminary study that in HepG2 cells transfected with HBV expression plasmid, miR-122 expression was up-regulated, suggesting that miR-122 was related to the HBV infection. On this basis, in the present study, miR-122 and pCH9-HBV1.1 plasmid were cotransfected into HepG2 cells. Southern blot detection result showed that miR-122 can inhibit HBV replication. Using MiRanda computer software, HBx was predicted to be the target sequence of miR-122; Luciferase reporter gene system and Western blot detection of HBx protein expression changes were further used to verify the HBx expression regulated by miR-122. And finally, it can be speculated that miR-122 may affected HBV replication by regulating the expression of HBx.