 hepadnaviruses are a family of enveloped, double-stranded viruses which can cause liver infections in animalsâincluding humans. its most well-known member is the hepatitis b virus. there are two recognized genera: * genus orthohepadnavirus; type species: hepatitis b virus * genus avihepadnavirus; type species: duck hepatitis b virus the name of the family comes from : hepa(for hepatic)-dna-virus. == virology == === genome === hepadnaviruses have very small genomes of partially double-stranded, partially single stranded circular dna. the genome consists of two uneven strands of dna. one has a negative-sense orientation, and the other, shorter, strand has a positive-sense orientation. as it is a group 7 virus, replication involves an rna intermediate. three main open reading frames are encoded (orfs) and the virus has four known genes which encode the core protein, the virus polymerase, surface antigens (pres1, pres2, and s) and the x protein. the x protein is thought to be non-structural; however, its function and significance are poorly understood. === replication === hepadnaviruses replicate through an rna intermediate (which they transcribe back into cdna using reverse transcriptase). the reverse transcriptase becomes covalently linked to a short 3- or 4-nucleotide primer.a novel cis-acting element facilitates minus-strand dna synthesis during reverse transcription of the hepatitis b virus genome by myeong-kyun shin, jehan lee and wang-shick ryu in journal of virology (2004) volume 78, pages 6252â6262. most hepadnaviruses will only replicate in specific hosts, and this makes experiments using in vitro methods very difficult. the virus binds to specific receptors on cells and the core particle enters the cell cytoplasm. this is then translocated to the nucleus, where the partially double stranded dna is 'repaired' by the cell to form a complete circle of dna. it then undergoes transcription by the host cell rna polymerase and the transcript is translated by host cell ribosomes. new virus particles are formed, which acquire lipid from the endoplasmic reticulum of the host cell, and the genome is packaged within these particles, which then bud off from the cell. hepadnavirus-infected cells translate the protein known as the virus surface antigen many times until there is too much protein to coat the virions formed. these proteins then aggregate to form rod shapes, and it is this antigen,
Hepadnaviridae