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'Friendly' virus repairs damaged liver cells (but only in mice)
Conclusion This study showed it was possible to engineer and inject instructions that transform myofibroblasts into liver cells in mice with liver disease, which is quite a feat. Not all delivery mechanisms, called vectors, worked, but in those that did, the new liver cells looked normal, replaced some of the dying cells, and led to less damage due to collagen build up. Despite the alcoholism-related headline, the mice did not have alcohol-induced liver damage – although this is a major cause of liver damage in people. This study serves to prove this approach is feasible, and was successful in doing this. Researchers wi...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 3, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Genetics/stem cells Lifestyle/exercise Medical practice Source Type: news

Recent advances in use of gene therapy to treat hepatitis B virus infection.
Authors: Bloom K, Ely A, Arbuthnot P Abstract Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) occurs in approximately 5 % of the world's human population and persistence of the virus is associated with serious complications of cirrhosis and liver cancer. Currently available treatments are modestly effective and advancing novel therapeutic strategies is a medical priority. Stability of the viral cccDNA replication intermediate is a major factor that has impeded the development of therapies that are capable of eliminating chronic infection. Recent advances that employ gene therapy strategies offer useful advantages ov...
Source: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - March 12, 2015 Category: Research Tags: Adv Exp Med Biol Source Type: research

The true story and advantages of the famous Hepatitis B virus core particles: Outlook 2016.
Abstract This review article is a continuation of the paper "Hepatitis B core particles as a universal display model: a structure-function basis for development" written by Pumpens P. and Grens E., ordered by Professor Lev Kisselev and published in FEBS Letters, 1999, 442, 1-6. The past 17 years have strengthened the paper's finding that the human hepatitis B virus core protein, along with other Hepadnaviridae family member core proteins, is a mysterious, multifunctional protein. The core gene of the Hepadnaviridae genome encodes five partially collinear proteins. The most important of these is the HBV core protei...
Source: Molekuliarnaia Biologiia - June 30, 2016 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Pumpens P, Grens E Tags: Mol Biol (Mosk) Source Type: research

In silico Selection of Amplification Targets for Rapid Polymorphism Screening in Ebola Virus Outbreaks
Discussion Genome comparison of over 1,230 non-redundant, high quality EBOV full-length sequences within the Zaire lineage revealed both conserved and highly variable regions (Figure 1). The latter were concentrated in non-coding sequences, which were also more AT-rich than coding sequences, an observation that has also been made for other virus species, for instance Hepatitis B virus (González et al., 2018). The AT-content of coding sequences was most likely lower due to codon constraints, though we observe that the gene for RNA polymerase is richer in AT than the other EBOV genes. The analysis further identified ...
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology - April 25, 2019 Category: Microbiology Source Type: research

Viruses, Vol. 13, Pages 1344: Improved Specificity and Safety of Anti-Hepatitis B Virus TALENs Using Obligate Heterodimeric FokI Nuclease Domains
Abdullah Ely Persistent hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a serious medical problem worldwide, with an estimated global burden of 257 million carriers. Prophylactic and therapeutic interventions, in the form of a vaccine, immunomodulators, and nucleotide and nucleoside analogs, are available. Vaccination, however, offers no therapeutic benefit to chronic sufferers and has had a limited impact on infection rates. Although immunomodulators and nucleotide and nucleoside analogs have been licensed for treatment of chronic HBV, cure rates remain low. Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) designed...
Source: Viruses - July 12, 2021 Category: Virology Authors: Tiffany Smith Prashika Singh Kay Ole Chmielewski Kristie Bloom Toni Cathomen Patrick Arbuthnot Abdullah Ely Tags: Article Source Type: research

Human hepatitis B virus-derived virus-like particle as a drug and DNA delivery carrier
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2021 Oct 7;581:103-109. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.10.009. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe controlled release of medications using nanoparticle-based drug delivery carriers is a promising method to increase the efficacy of pharmacotherapy and gene therapy. One critical issue that needs to be overcome with these drug delivery carriers is their target specificity. We focused on the cell tropism of a virus to solve this issue, i.e., we attempted to apply hepatitis B virus-like particle (HBV-VLP) as a novel hepatic cell-selective carrier for medication and DNA. To prepare HBV-VLP, 293T cells were tr...
Source: Biochemical and Biophysical Research communications - October 22, 2021 Category: Biochemistry Authors: Chiho Sakai Kohei Hosokawa Tadashi Watanabe Youichi Suzuki Takashi Nakano Keiji Ueda Masahiro Fujimuro Source Type: research

Liver-related aspects of gene therapy for hemophilia: need for collaborations with hepatologists
J Thromb Haemost. 2022 Dec 22:S1538-7836(22)07640-1. doi: 10.1016/j.jtha.2022.11.026. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTAdeno-associated virus-based gene therapies hemophilia allow long-term transgene expression with reduced annual bleeding rates. Various liver-related aspects are involved in the different phases of gene therapy, such as assessment of liver health in the pretherapy period, patient selection and follow-up, maintenance of liver health after gene therapy, and management of potential short- and long-term adverse events. Increase in alanine aminotransferease is a common adverse event that requires rapid evaluation ...
Source: Thrombosis and Haemostasis - January 26, 2023 Category: Hematology Authors: Wolfgang Miesbach Graham R Foster Flora Peyvandi Source Type: research

Inhibition of HBV replication by EVA1A via enhancing cellular degradation of HBV components and its potential therapeutic application
In conclusion, EVA1A is a new host restriction factor that regulates the HBV life cycle via a nonimmune process.PMID:37236321 | DOI:10.1016/j.antiviral.2023.105643
Source: Cell Research - May 26, 2023 Category: Cytology Authors: Jie Yu Zhongliang Shen Shiqi Chen Hongyan Liu Zunguo Du Richeng Mao Jinyu Wang Yongmei Zhang Haoxiang Zhu Sisi Yang Jing Li Jingwen Wu Minhui Dong Mengqi Zhu Yuxian Huang Jianhua Li Zhenghong Yuan Youhua Xie Mengji Lu Jiming Zhang Source Type: research