Figure 7.

Enhanced antiviral effect with combinations of TALENs and IFN treatment. (a–b) Huh7 cells were co-transfected with the linear full-length HBV DNA and the plasmids encoding indicated TALENs. 1,000 IU/ml IFN-α was added to the cells at 36 hours post-transfection. At 72 hours post-transfection, the cells were extracted for pgRNA quantitation (a), or the cells from indicated group were lysed for cccDNA extraction followed by real-time PCR using primers for cccDNA quantitation (b). (c–d) Huh7 cells were co-transfected with the linear full-length HBV DNA and the plasmids encoding L2/R2 or the control vectors. 1,000 IU/ml IFN-α was added to the cells at 36 hours post-transfection. At 72 hours post-transfection, the cells were fixed to perform immunofluorescence staining (c) and the supernatants of the cells were collected to detect HBeAg by ELISA (d). (e) Huh7 cells co-transfected with pISRE-Luc and the indicated plasmids were treated with 1,000 IU/ml IFN-α- or mock-treated for 12 hours at 48 hours post-transfection and then harvested for the luciferase assay using the Dual-Luciferase Assay Kit (Promega). ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; HBV, hepatitis B virus; TALEN, transcription activator-like effector nucleases.