Recent Drug Development in the Woodchuck Model of Chronic Hepatitis B
by Manasa Suresh
[ORCID] and Stephan Menne
* [ORCID]
Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC 20057, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Dohun Pyeon and Katerina Strati
Viruses 2022, 14(8), 1711; https://doi.org/10.3390/v14081711
Received: 17 June 2022 / Revised: 22 July 2022 / Accepted: 31 July 2022 / Published: 3 August 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Frontiers in Small DNA Virus Research)
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Abstract
Infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for the increasing global hepatitis burden, with an estimated 296 million people being carriers and living with the risk of developing chronic liver disease and cancer. While the current treatment options for chronic hepatitis B (CHB), including oral nucleos(t)ide analogs and systemic interferon-alpha, are deemed suboptimal, the path to finding an ultimate cure for this viral disease is rather challenging. The lack of suitable laboratory animal models that support HBV infection and associated liver disease progression is one of the major hurdles in antiviral drug development. For more than four decades, experimental infection of the Eastern woodchuck with woodchuck hepatitis virus has been applied for studying the immunopathogenesis of HBV and developing new antiviral therapeutics against CHB. There are several advantages to this animal model that are beneficial for performing both basic and translational HBV research. Previous review articles have focused on the value of this animal model in regard to HBV replication, pathogenesis, and immune response. In this article, we review studies of drug development and preclinical evaluation of direct-acting antivirals, immunomodulators, therapeutic vaccines, and inhibitors of viral entry, gene expression, and antigen release in the woodchuck model of CHB since 2014 until today and discuss their significance for clinical trials in patients. View Full-Text
Keywords: chronic hepatitis B; antiviral therapy; immunotherapy; woodchuck; woodchuck hepatitis virus
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 作者: StephenW 时间: 2022-8-27 14:32
