HEPATITIS B: Drug Bound State Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to better understand and investigate the five different drug bound states of the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and how they relate to the two differing strains. The intended outcome for the research project is to further the development of preventing infection of Hepatitis B through improved knowledge of virus classification and enhancing current antiviral drugs. Hepatitis B was chosen to research due to its icosahedral symmetry and unique behavior. Oftentimes the capsid protein (cp) is analyzed rather than the full capsid due to its identical behavior and increased simplicity. The HBV cp is 183 amino acids long, but is truncated at amino acid 149 and mutated to have a cysteine as its 150th amino acid along with replacing the other native cysteines with alanines to help with stability.