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©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Expression of hepatitis B virus surface antigens induces defective gonad phenotypes in Caenorhabditis elegans
Yi-Yin Chen, Li-Wei Lee, Szecheng J Lo, Department of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Tao Yuan 333, Taiwan
Yi-Yin Chen, Wei-Ning Hong, Szecheng J Lo, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Tao Yuan 333, Taiwan
Author contributions: Chen YY, Lee LW and Lo SJ conceived and designed experiments; Chen YY, Lee LW and Hong WN performed the experiments; Chen YY and Lo SJ analyzed data; Lee LW and Lo SJ wrote the paper.
Supported by Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, grants Nos. CMRPD1C0812, CMRPD1C0813 and BMRP742 (to Lo SJ).
Institutional review board statement: No.
Informed consent statement: No.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Szecheng J Lo, PhD, Professor, Department of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, #259 Wen-Hwa 1st Road, Tao Yuan 333, Taiwan. losj@mail.cgu.edu.tw
Telephone: +886-3-2118800-3259 Fax: +886-3-2118392
Received: June 24, 2016
Peer-review started: June 27, 2016
First decision: September 5, 2016
Revised: October 9, 2016
Accepted: November 27, 2016
Article in press: November 29, 2016
Published online: February 12, 2017
Peer-review started: June 27, 2016
First decision: September 5, 2016
Revised: October 9, 2016
Accepted: November 27, 2016
Article in press: November 29, 2016
Published online: February 12, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: In the past, mouse and cell culture models have been used for studying the effects of hepatitis B virus antigens (HBsAg) on hosts. Both models have advantages and disadvantages in terms of economic and time concerns. In this study, we provide an alternative animal model, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), to demonstrate that SHBsAg can induce observable phenotypes which has never been reported in mouse and cell culture models. We suggest that C. elegans can serve as a new plateform for studying various viral pathogenesis.