{"doi":"10.1128/jvi.00922-20","title":"Characterization of the Termini of Cytoplasmic Hepatitis B Virus Deproteinated Relaxed Circular DNA","abstract":"The covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is the persistent form of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome in viral infection and an undisputed antiviral target for an HBV cure. HBV cccDNA is converted from viral genomic relaxed circular DNA (rcDNA) through a complex process that involves removing the covalently bound viral polymerase from rcDNA, which produces a deproteinated-rcDNA (DP-rcDNA) intermediate for cccDNA formation. In this study, we characterized the four termini of cytoplasmic DP-rcDNA and compared them to its rcDNA precursor. While rcDNA and DP-rcDNA have an identical 3' terminus of (-)strand DNA, the 3' terminus of (+)strand DNA on DP-rcDNA is further elongated. Furthermore, the peculiarities on rcDNA 5' termini, specifically the RNA primer on the (+)strand and the polymerase on the (-)strand, are absent from DP-rcDNA. Thus, our study provides new insights into a better understanding of HBV rcDNA deproteination and cccDNA biosynthesis.","journal":"Journal of Virology","year":2020,"id":75282,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9601,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":393022,"name":"Ran Yan","orcid":"0000-0002-6152-9683","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":393023,"name":"Zhiwei Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-9278-2083","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238343,"name":"Hu Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-7447-8360","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238339,"name":"Sheng Shen","orcid":"0000-0002-4320-2732","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":393024,"name":"Bidisha Mitra","orcid":"0000-0001-6206-2723","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":393025,"name":"Alexander Marchetti","orcid":"0000-0001-7845-7375","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322706,"name":"Elena S. Kim","orcid":"0000-0002-8666-5681","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238347,"name":"Haitao Guo","orcid":"0000-0002-7146-916X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287754,"name":"Dawei Cai","orcid":"0000-0001-6650-0217","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":52,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:46:33.313355Z","pmid":"33055252","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}