On the other hand, reports have demonstrated that HBV significantly down-regulates MxA expression, and this involves a role of hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) by interacting with the MxA promoter,14 making Ipilimumab mouse the interaction between HBV and MxA more complicated than had been predicted. Considering that HBV is one of the major causes of acute and chronic hepatitis (particularly in East Asia and central Africa, where some 10% of the population are HBV carriers, many of whom die from liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma),15 it is therefore important to further elucidate the mechanisms underlying the anti-HBV

activity of MxA, which may contribute to our understanding of the interaction between HBV and MxA, one of the major mediators of IFN function. In this study, we verified the inhibitory effect of MxA on HBV replication in HepG2.2.15 cells. We provide evidence that the anti-HBV function of MxA is mediated by an interaction between MxA and HBcAg, the core protein of HBV. Through its central interactive domain (CID), MxA traps HBcAg in the perinuclear MxA-HBcAg complexes, and this interferes with HBV core particle formation. ASFV, African swine fever virus; BFA, brefeldin A; ER, endoplasmic reticulum; GFP, green fluorescent protein; GTPase, guanosine triphosphatase; FLIP, fluorescence loss in photobleaching; FRAP, fluorescence recovery Selisistat after photobleaching; FRET, fluorescence resonance energy transfer; HBcAg,

hepatitis B core antigen; HBsAg, hepatitis B surface antigen; HBV, hepatitis B virus; IFN, interferon; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; pgRNA, medchemexpress pregenomic RNA; RC-DNA, relaxed circular DNA. HepG2.2.15 cells were grown in Roswell Park Memorial Institute 1640 at 37°C under an atmosphere of 5% CO2. HuH7 cells and Vero cells were maintained in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium. IFN-α2B was obtained from PeproTech (Rocky Hill, NJ),

brefeldin A was obtained from Epicentre Technologies (Madison, WI), and nocodazole was obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, MO). The following antibodies were used: anti-Flag (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA), anti–green fluorescent protein (GFP) (Cell Signaling, Danvers, MA), monoclonal anti-HBcAg (Millipore, Billerica, MA), polyclonal anti-HBcAg (Dako, Carpinteria, CA), anti-MxA (Proteintech, Chicago, IL), anti-GM130 (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA), anti-p58, and anti-α-tubulin (Sigma). All vectors used are described in the Supporting Materials and Methods. Transient transfections were performed using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) according to an optimized protocol. Intracellular HBV DNA was isolated as described16 with modifications. Briefly, cells were lysed and the nuclei were removed by centrifugation. The cytoplasmic DNA was then extracted from the supernatants with a Cell DNA Extraction Kit (Bioteke, Beijing, China) and analyzed via Southern blotting as described in the Supporting Materials and Methods.