Search bioRxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.07.21.215012

Understanding the antiviral effects of RNAi-based therapy on chronic hepatitis B infection

Ciupe, S. M.·Dahari, H.·Kadelka, S.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Reaching hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss (called functional cure) with approved treatment with pegylated interferon- (IFN) and/or nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infected patients is suboptimal. The RNA interference (RNAi) drug ARC-520 was shown to be effective in reducing serum HBV DNA, HBsAg and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) in chimpanzees and small animals. A recent clinical study (Heparc-2001) showed reduction of serum HBV DNA, HBeAg and HBsAg in HBeAg-positive patients treated with a single dose of ARC-520 and daily NA (entecavir). To provide insights into HBV dynamics under ARC-520 treatment and its efficacy in blocking HBV DNA, HBsAg, and HBeAg production we developed a a multi-compartmental pharmacokinetic-pharamacodynamic model and calibrated it with measured HBV data. We showed that the time-dependent ARC-520 efficacies in blocking HBsAg and HBeAg are more than 96% effective around day 1, and slowly wane to 50% in 1-4 months. The combined ARC-520 and entecavir effect on HBV DNA is constant over time, with efficacy of more than 99.8%. HBV DNA loss is entecavir mediated and the strong but transient HBsAg and HBeAg decays are solely ARC-520 mediated. We added complexity to the model in order to reproduce current long-term therapy outcomes with NAs by considering the tradeoff between hepatocyte loss and hepatocyte division, and used it to make in-silico long-term predictions for virus, HBsAg and HBeAg titer dynamics. These results may help assess ongoing RNAi drug development for hepatitis B virus infection. Author summaryWith about 300 million persons infected worldwide and 800,000 deaths annually, chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major public health burden with high endemic areas around the world. Current treatment options focus on removing circulating HBV DNA but are suboptimal in removing hepatitis B s- and e-antigens. ARC-520, a RNA interference drug, had induced substantial hepatitis B s- and e- antigen reductions in animals and patients receiving therapy. We study the effect of ARC-520 on hepatitis B s- and e-antigen decline by developing mathematical models for the dynamics of intracellular and serum viral replication, and compare it to patient HBV DNA, hepatitis B s- and e-antigen data from a clinical trial with one ARC-520 injection and daily nucleoside analogue therapy. We examine biological parameters describing the different phases of HBV DNA, s-antigen and e-antigen decline and rebound after treatment initiation, and estimate treatment effectiveness. Such approach can inform the RNA interference drug therapy.

Source connections

Explore related subjects

immunologyPreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Ciupe, S. M., Dahari, H., Kadelka, S.. 2020-07-22. Understanding the antiviral effects of RNAi-based therapy on chronic hepatitis B infection. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.21.215012

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Proliferation and mutation as humoral immune response

The affinity maturation process, through which antibodies acquire relatively high affinity for an invading pathogen, involves complex mechanisms whose relative importance is not yet fully understood. This study proposes an analytical model of this process, to investigate the main factors governing proliferation and mutation and assess their respective roles. The model suggests that the immune system should not be expected to follow a single, rigid evolutionary pattern, as a wide range of proliferation and mutation strategies can yield nearly optimal outcomes. Keywords: Antibody, antigen, affinity, B-cell, mutation, proliferation

immunology↗
bioRxiv2026

Proteome-wide discovery of novel diagnostic antigens for coccidioidomycosis

Coccidioidomycosis, commonly called Valley Fever (VF), caused by Coccidioides spp., is an understudied fungal disease that accounts for a substantial fraction of pneumonias in endemic areas. Diagnosis remains challenging because the mainstay of diagnosis is serology, and current assays have modest sensitivity in early infection. Discovery of new antigens could improve serologic detection early in disease. Here, we use PepSeq, a DNA-programmable serology platform, to represent the complete proteome of Coccidioides within a library of 244,000 DNA-barcoded peptides. By profiling antibody reactivity at the protein and epitope levels in VF patients, naturally infected pigtail macaques, and healthy controls, we identify numerous previously-unrecognized antigens and epitopes, including some shared between humans and macaque responses. When translated into a pooled peptide ELISA, we show that a subset of identified antigens can discriminate VF cases from controls in an independent cohort with high accuracy (AUC = 0.91). These findings establish high-dimensional peptide serology as a scalable approach for fungal antigen discovery and identify new targets for improved VF diagnosis.

immunology↗
bioRxiv2026

Establishing an ex vivo platform for molecular profiling of skin structural cells using frozen human skin biopsies

Skin structural cells, including keratinocytes, melanocytes, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts, play critical roles in the development of chronic inflammatory skin disease. Inflammatory stimuli induce transcriptional reprogramming and epigenetic changes in skin structural cells, which contribute to disease pathogenesis. Although two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) skin culture models have been widely used to investigate inflammatory responses in skin structural cells, ex vivo systems that maintain skin structure and cellular composition remain limited. To address this gap, we explored using frozen skin biopsies as an experimental platform to study the responses of skin structural cells to inflammatory stimuli. Using a simple air-liquid interface culture method on permeable Transwell inserts, we showed that viable skin structural cells that retain cell-type-specific transcriptional profiles can be recovered from frozen skin biopsies after prolonged in vitro culture. Stimulation with IFN-{gamma} induced robust transcriptional and chromatin accessibility changes that were largely resolved after stimulus removal, with transcriptional responses to secondary stimulation comparable to the primary stimulation. Treatment of cultured skin biopsies with histone-modifying enzyme inhibitors effectively altered global histone modification levels, but did not substantially affect the transcriptional resolution of IFN-{gamma}-induced responses. Collectively, these findings establish cryopreserved human skin biopsies as a scalable ex vivo platform that enables mechanistic studies of inflammatory responses of multiple populations of skin structural cells.

immunology↗