Towards a Functional Cure for Hepatitis B Virus: A 2022 Update on New Antiviral Strategies

Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) represents one of the main causes of the development of cirrhosis and its complications. Treatment with potent third-generation nucleos(t)ide analogues (NUCs) results in >99% HBV DNA undetectability, and prevents fibrosis progression and liver-relate...

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Published inViruses Vol. 14; no. 11; p. 2404
Main Authors Degasperi, Elisabetta, Anolli, Maria Paola, Lampertico, Pietro
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland MDPI AG 29.10.2022
MDPI
Subjects
Antigens
Antiviral agents
Antiviral Agents - pharmacology
Antiviral Agents - therapeutic use
Antiviral drugs
Care and treatment
Chronic infection
Cirrhosis
clinical trials
DNA, Viral
Drug development
Drug dosages
Fibrosis
functional cure
Genetic aspects
Genomes
HBV
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis B - drug therapy
Hepatitis B Antibodies
Hepatitis B surface antigen
Hepatitis B Surface Antigens
Hepatitis B virus - genetics
Hepatitis B, Chronic - drug therapy
Humans
Immunomodulation
investigational drugs
Liver cancer
Liver cirrhosis
Liver diseases
nucleos(t)ide analogues
Physiological aspects
Polypeptides
Proteins
Review
Seroconversion
Signal transduction
Virus Replication
Italy
functional cure
clinical trials
HBV
investigational drugs
nucleos(t)ide analogues
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Summary:Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) represents one of the main causes of the development of cirrhosis and its complications. Treatment with potent third-generation nucleos(t)ide analogues (NUCs) results in >99% HBV DNA undetectability, and prevents fibrosis progression and liver-related complications. However, NUCs are not able to induce the so-called functional cure, which is hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss and anti-HBs seroconversion. Consequently, NUC treatment is currently intended as being long-term or lifelong, resulting in the need for clinical monitoring and potentially suffering from compliance issues. Consequently, drug development in HBV has the goal of developing new agents in order to achieve a functional cure for HBV. Currently, the three main strategies include the following: inhibition of viral replication, inhibition of viral antigens, and immune modulation. This review summarizes the most recent updates concerning HBV compounds among these three main classes.
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ISSN:1999-4915
1999-4915
DOI:10.3390/v14112404