Published in

American Society for Microbiology, Journal of Virology, 20(92), 2018

DOI: 10.1128/jvi.01082-18

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Assembly properties of Hepatitis B Virus core protein mutants correlate with their resistance to assembly-directed antivirals

Journal article published in 2018 by Lu Ruan, Jodi A. Hadden ORCID, Adam Zlotnick ORCID, J. H. James Ou
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Published version: archiving restricted
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The HBV core protein and its assembly into capsids have become important targets for development of core protein allosteric modulators (CpAMs) as antivirals. Naturally occurring T109 mutants have been shown to be resistant to some of these CpAMs. We found that mutation of T109 led to changes in capsid stability and recapitulated resistance to a weak CpAM, but much less so than to a strong CpAM. Examination of HBV capsid structures, determined by cryo-EM and crystallography, could not explain how T109 mutations change capsid stability and resistance. However, by mining data from a microsecond-long all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, we found that the capsid was extraordinarily flexible and that T109 can impede entry to the CpAM binding site. In short, HBV capsids are incredibly dynamic and molecular mobility must be considered in discussions of antiviral mechanisms.