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Updated: Jul 13, 2025

Development of a Hepatitis B Virus Reporter System to Monitor the Early Stages of the Replication Cycle
Published on: February 1, 2017
A CRISPR-based system to investigate HBV cccDNA biology
1Fox Chase Cancer Center , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Importance:
Hepatitis B virus cccDNA is the key target for the necessary development of antiviral therapies aimed at curing chronic hepatitis B. The CRISPR-based system to produce covalently closed circular (cccDNA)-like extrachromosomal DNAs described in this report enables large-scale screens of chemical libraries to identify drug candidates with the potential to permanently inactivate cccDNA. Moreover, this approach permits investigations on unresolved problems as described in this report concerning cccDNA biology including mechanisms of SMC5/6-dependent transcriptional silencing and the contributions of the SMC5/6 complex to cccDNA stability in resting and dividing hepatocytes.
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