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Hepatitis

No cure for hepatitis B and D without targeting integrated viral DNA?

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From Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

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RNA interference (RNAi) is a novel concept to target transcripts derived from HBV covalently closed circular DNA. The study by Wooddell et al. investigates the RNAi-based therapy ARC-520 in patients and chimpanzees with chronic HBV infection and uncovers HBV DNA integration as a crucial source of hepatitis B surface antigen, which has not been considered in current strategies to accomplish HBV cure.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustration of how ARC-520 targets HBV.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank F. Rinker for drafting the figure and T. Bock for critical review of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover; the German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), partner-site Hannover-Braunschweig; and the Centre for Individualised Infection Medicine (CIIM), Hannover, Germany.,

    Markus Cornberg & Michael P. Manns

  2. the German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), partner-site Hannover-Braunschweig,

    Markus Cornberg & Michael P. Manns

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  1. Markus Cornberg
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  2. Michael P. Manns
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Correspondence to Markus Cornberg or Michael P. Manns.

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Competing interests

M.C. received payments for lectures and consultation from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences and Roche. M.M. received payments for lectures, consultation and trial support from Bristol-Myers Squibb, CureVac, Gilead Sciences, Glaxo Smith Kline, MSD, Novartis and Roche.

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Cornberg, M., Manns, M. No cure for hepatitis B and D without targeting integrated viral DNA?. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 15, 195–196 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.185

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