丁型肝炎病毒感染动物模型的研究进展

Research progress on animal models of hepatitis D infection

丁型肝炎病毒(hepatitis D virus, HDV)是目前已知感染人类的最小病毒。全球约有1 500万人感染HDV。HDV是一种缺陷型RNA病毒,其复制依赖于乙型肝炎病毒(hepatitis B virus, HBV)。HBV合并HDV感染被认为是最严重的病毒性肝炎形式,呈现为急、慢性肝炎,病情容易进展为肝硬化和肝癌。在过去的几十年里,人们利用多种动物模型了解了很多HDV的感染机制,但对HDV感染和丁型肝炎病理机制的理解尚不完全,仍需建立新的、方便实用的动物模型以推动HDV基础研究和抗病毒药物的开发。本文对HDV感染动物模型的研究进展进行简要综述。

Hepatitis D virus(HDV) is the smallest virus known to infect humans.About 15 million people worldwide are infected by HDV.HDV is a defective RNA virus and requires hepatitis B virus(HBV) for its replication.The combination of HBV and HDV infection is considered as one of the most severe forms of human viral hepatitis.The infection leads to acute and chronic hepatitis prone to developing cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.Much of HDV infection mechanism has been known over the past decades, and various animal models have been used in HDV studies.However, our understanding of HDV infection and the pathogenesis of hepatitis D is still uncompleted.Developing convenient animal models will facilitate basic studies of HDV and drug development against the infection.Here we briefly summarize research progress on animal models of HDV infection.