For the Hepatitis disease day, Theme: Bringing Hepatitis care closer to you, here's the 3d-structure of the infectious hepatitis B virus (HBV) and the full assembly of the virus capsid shell; see the images.

This study is realised using the cryo-EM method which reached the atomic resolution of 3.5 Å for the four-chained biological unit (A, B, C and D) - see Image 1 & Image 4. The assembly, in Image 2 and Image 3 is made of 60 units (of the 4 chain units) or 240 individual chains assembled executing suitable symmetry relationships between the units/chains.

This study gave the landscape and topology, amongst many other useful information, about the capsid shell antigens built of the virus. Such structural studies helps in the rational design of new drugs including vaccines that would help the fight against Hepatitis B more efficiently.

The structure can be explored via the SSFS^❇️ bioinformatics tool, available at Department of Biology, Univ. of Saida, from the link:

🖝 http://bioinformaticstools.org/ssfs/ssfs.php?qry=3j2v      --  Image 1

See also the paper in relation to the strucutral study:

🖝 3.5Å cryoEM structure of hepatitis B virus core assembled from full-length core protein

Just to stimulate and encourage researchers into checking the structure in the SSFS entry, in the link above, and reading the paper, it would be worth it to know that the researches discuss in their paper key differences between their cryo-EM structure and previously known X-ray crystallography based structures.

In this context, the findings in the research paper could also be useful towards spoting / highlighting the meaning of the differences (between these methods) in understanding the subtle details of the inner working of the biological function more precisely and efficiently.

For more technical and also general details about the Hepatitis virus and disease, go to the following links:

🖝 Hepatitis - in PubMed

🖝 Hepatitis B: the virus and disease - in PubMed

🖝 Hepatitis

🖝 Viral hepatitis

More on the WorldHepatitisDay 2022 from the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC) and from otheres:

🖝 World Hepatitis Day 2022 .. by the WHO

🖝 World Hepatitis Day 2022 .. by the ECDPC

🖝 World Hepptitis Day - 28 July .. by the worldhepatitisday.org

Important research and discoveries around the cause of Hepatitis B infection did indeed helped in developing a vaccine against the disease andh ence saving millions of human lives lead Professor Baruch Blumberg to win a shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. For more in the subject, follow the links below:

🖝 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - 1976. Biography of Prof. Baruch Blumberg

❇️ SSFS: Sequence, Structure and Function Server by the Structural Biology & Bioinformatics Groups, Biology Dept, Faculty of Science, University of Saida, Algeria

نظام: سلسلة التركيب الأولي، التركيب الفراغي و الوظيفة البيولوجية ، فريق البيولوجيا ثلاثية الأبعاد و المعلوماتية الحيوية، قسم البيولوجيا، كلية العلوم، جامعة سعيدة، الجزائر