FIG 5.

Effects of the HBc CDM mutations on pgRNA packaging. HepG2 cells were transfected with the HBV replicon constructs harboring the CDM A mutants and harvested as described in the legend to Fig. 3. For the CDM AA mutants, HepG2 cells were cotransfected with the indicated HBc expression constructs together with the HBV genomic construct defective in HBc expression and harvested at 5 days posttransfection. (A) Cytoplasmic lysate was analyzed for pgRNA packaging, following agarose gel electrophoresis and transfer to nitrocellulose membrane, using the antisense HBV RNA probe and MAb T2221 to detect the packaged pgRNA and assembled capsids, respectively. (B) RNA packaging efficiency was determined by normalizing the levels of RNA packaging to those of capsids, with the efficiency from the WT set at 1.0. Data are presented as the mean and SD of results from three independent experiments. Asterisks indicate significant differences in comparison with the WT (*, P < 0.05).