Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 27, 2025; 17(6): 106493
Published online Jun 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i6.106493
Silent sabotage: How hepatitis B virus-miR-3 disarms innate immunity through cGAS-STING suppression
Nida Ansari, Patrick Twohig
Nida Ansari, Department of Internal Medicine, St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, Paterson, NJ 07504, United States
Patrick Twohig, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14682, United States
Author contributions: Twohig P designed the overall concept and outline of the manuscript; Ansari N contributed to the discussion and design of the manuscript. Ansari N and Twohig P both contributed to the writing, editing of the manuscript, and review of the literature.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Patrick Twohig, Assistant Professor, FRCPC, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Rochester Medical Center, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14682, United States. patrick_twohig@urmc.rochester.edu
Received: February 27, 2025
Revised: March 30, 2025
Accepted: April 23, 2025
Published online: June 27, 2025
Processing time: 118 Days and 9.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) evades innate immunity through HBV-miR-3, which suppresses the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING)-IFN pathway, a critical antiviral defense mechanism. By downregulating cGAS and STING, HBV prevents interferon production, allowing the virus to persist and promoting chronic infection. Targeting HBV-miR-3 or restoring this immune pathway could offer new therapeutic strategies to enhance antiviral immunity and combat HBV-related diseases.