Figure 1
From: Progress in the use of RNA interference as a therapy for chronic hepatitis B virus infection
A schematic of the hepatitis B virus genome structure, gene arrangement and expressed transcripts. (a) The partially double-stranded genome is shown associated with a viral capsid (gray hexagon). (b) The four viral open reading frames encoding the core (C), polymerase (P), surface (S) and hepatitis B virus X (HBx) proteins, colored to show how they partially or fully overlap each other. (c) Four major viral RNA species (outer arrows) are transcribed from the covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) template and terminate at a single polyadenylation signal. Targeting the X transcript of the viral genome (indicated by shaded gray region) ensures that a single RNAi modality inhibits all viral-produced RNAs, including the greater-than-genome-length pregenomic RNA.