Lishan Su, PhD, a UNC Lineberger member and professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Yue Xiong, PhD, a UNC Lineberger member and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and collaborators, were published in the journal Cell Reports.
The paper, “Hepatitis B Virus X Protein Promotes Degradation of SMC5/6 to Enhance HBV Replication,” found that a primary function of a protein that helps activate viral gene expression is to degrade a human complex that can restrict the protein’s replication.
Hepatitis B infection can put people at risk for scarring of the liver and liver cancer.
To read the full paper, click here.