Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 21, 2015; 21(23): 7084-7088
Published online Jun 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i23.7084
Figure 2
Figure 2 Life cycle of hepatitis B virus. After hepatitis B virus (HBV) virions infect hepatocytes, relaxed circular DNA (rcDNA) enters the nucleus and is converted to covalently closed circular HBV DNA (cccDNA). HBV cccDNA persists in the nucleus as a mini-chromosome. HBV pregenomic RNA (pgRNA) is transcribed from cccDNA and acts as the viral protein mRNA. HBV pgRNA is co-packaged with reverse transcriptase in capsids and is reverse-transcribed into rcDNA. Nucleocapsids containing rcDNA are released from the host cell as virions.