A key role for the exoribonuclease XRN1 in regulating the hepatitis B viral transcriptome
Senko Tsukuda, Nadina Wand, James M Harris, Olivia Dobrica, Medhi Boutasbih, Xiaxuan Zhu, Peter AC Wing, Peter Balfe, Jane A McKeating · 2026
Read A key role for the exoribonuclease XRN1 in regulating the hepatitis B viral transcriptome by Senko Tsukuda, Nadina Wand, James M Harris, Olivia Dobrica, Medhi Boutasbih, Xiaxuan Zhu, Peter AC Wing, Peter Balfe, Jane A McKeating (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13276156.txt.
Description
Senko Tsukuda and eight co-authors published a 2026 virology study on how a cell enzyme trims the RNA messages of hepatitis B virus. Chronic hepatitis B is a major cause of liver disease and liver cancer. The virus keeps its genome as a tiny chromosome and copies itself through RNA, yet how its RNAs are broken down was unclear.
Blocking or removing the enzyme XRN1, which chews RNA from one end, raised the virus's subgenomic RNAs. The full length genomic RNA was untouched, a split the team traced to differences in RNA caps and in where the RNAs gather inside the cell. Infection itself swelled the cellular bodies where RNA decay happens. Active replication, not just viral RNA presence, drove that change.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Senko Tsukuda, Nadina Wand, James M Harris, Olivia Dobrica, Medhi Boutasbih, Xiaxuan Zhu, Peter AC Wing, Peter Balfe, Jane A McKeating |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 55 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |