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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Expert Rev Vaccines. 2009 Nov;8(11):1565–1573. doi: 10.1586/erv.09.121

Figure 1. Diagrammatic representation of the HBV virion.

Figure 1

Large outer circles represent HBsAg embedded in the lipid envelope. Smaller inner circles represent core proteins that form the HBcAg nucleocapsid, while diamonds represent the secreted form of the core protein, HBeAg (expressed during infection). The partial rings represent the partially dsDNA genome and the trapezoid represents the viral polymerase. The X protein is not represented.

HBcAg: HBV core antigen; HBeAg: HBV e antigen; HBsAg: HBV surface antigen.