Cell Culture Models and Animal Models for HBV Study

Highly representative and relevant cell and mouse models are required for HBV study, including uncovering its lifecycle, investigation of the viral-host interaction, and development and evaluation of the novel antiviral therapy. During the past 40 years, both HBV cell culture models and animal models have evolved over several generations, each with significant improvement for specific purposes. In one aspect, HBV cell culture models experienced the original noninfection model including HBV plasmid DNA transfection and HBV genome integrated stable cells such as HepG2.2.15 which constitutively produces HBV virus and HepAD38 cells and its derivatives which drug-regulated HBV production. As for HBV infection models, HepaRG cells once dominated the HBV infection field for over a decade, but its complicated and labor-extensive cell differentiation procedures discouraged primary researchers from stepping in the field. The identification of human NTCP as HBV receptor evoked great enthusiasm of the whole HBV field, and its readily adaptive characteristic makes it popular in many HBV laboratories. Recombinant cccDNA (rc-cccDNA) emerged recently aiming to tackle the very basic question of how to eventually eradicate cccDNA without HBV real virus infection. In the other aspect, HBV transgenic mouse was firstly generated in the 1990s, which was helpful to decipher HBV production in vivo. However, the HBV transgenic mice were naturally immune tolerant to HBV viral products. Subsequently, a series of nonintegrated HBV mouse models were generated through plasmid hydrodynamic tail vein injection and viral vector-mediated delivery approaches, and HBV full life cycle was incomplete as cccDNA was not formed from HBV relaxed circular DNA (rcDNA). Human NTCP transgenic mouse still could not support productive HBV infection, and humanized mouse liver with human hepatocytes which supported whole HBV life cycle still dominates HBV infection in vivo, a value but expensive model until now. Other methods to empower mouse to carry HBV cccDNA were also exploited. In this chapter, we summarized the advantages and disadvantages of each model historically and provided protocols for HBV infection in HepG2-NTCP cells, HBV rc-cccDNA transfection in HepG2 cells, and HBV infection in NRG-Fah−/− liver humanized mouse.