Small Interfering RNA Screening for the Small GTPase Rab Proteins Identifies Rab5B as a Major Regulator of Hepatitis B Virus Production.

ABSTRACT: Viruses are considered to use vesicular trafficking in infected cells, but the details of assembly/release pathways of hepatitis B virus (HBV) are still unknown. To identify key regulators of HBV production, we performed short interfering RNA (siRNA) screening for Rab proteins, which are considered to act as molecular switches in vesicular trafficking using HepG2.2.15 cells. Among 62 Rab proteins, the suppression of Rab5B most significantly increased HBV DNA in the culture supernatant. Surprisingly, 5 days after the transfection of Rab5B siRNA, HBV DNA in the supernatant was increased more than 30-fold, reflecting the increase of infectious HBV particles. Northern blotting showed that transcription of 2.4/2.1-kb mRNA coding envelope proteins containing large hepatitis B surface protein (LH

SUBMITTER: Inoue J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6639270 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature