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Hepatitis Delta Virus Alters the Autophagy Process To Promote Its Genome Replication

2019; American Society for Microbiology; Volume: 94; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1128/jvi.01936-19

1098-5514

Marwa Khabir, Asma Zahra Aliche, Camille Sureau, Matthieu Blanchet, Patrick Labonté,

Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Disease

Hepatitis delta virus is a defective RNA virus that requires hepatitis B virus envelope proteins (HBsAg) to fulfill its life cycle. Thus, HDV can only infect individuals at the same time as HBV (coinfection) or superinfect individuals who are already chronic carriers of HBV. The presence of HDV in the liver accelerates the progression of infection to fibrosis and to hepatic cancer. Since current treatments against HBV are ineffective against HDV, it is of paramount importance to study the interaction between HBV, HDV, and host factors. This will help unravel new targets whereby a therapy that is capable of simultaneously impeding both viruses could be developed. In this research paper, we evidence that the autophagy machinery promotes the replication of HBV and HDV at different steps of their life cycle. Notwithstanding their contribution to HBV release, autophagy proteins seem to assist HDV intracellular replication but not its secretion.