Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection represents a significant public health burden worldwide. Although current therapeutics manage to control the disease progression, lifelong treatment and surveillance are required because drug resistance develops during treatment and reactivations frequently occur following medication cessation. Thus, the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma is decreased, but not eliminated. One major reason for failure of HBV treatment is the inability to eradicate or inactivate the viral covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA), which is a stable episomal form of the viral genome decorated with host histones and nonhistone proteins. Accumulating evidence suggests that epigenetic modifications of cccDNA contribute to viral replication and the outcome of chronic HBV infection. Here, we summarize current progress on HBV epigenetics research and the therapeutic implications for chronic HBV infection by learning from the epigenetic therapies for cancer and other viral diseases, which may open a new venue to cure chronic hepatitis B. (Hepatology 2017;66:2066–2077)

中文翻译：

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乙型肝炎病毒共价闭合环状 DNA 的表观遗传调控：对慢性乙型肝炎表观遗传治疗的影响

乙型肝炎病毒 (HBV) 感染是全球重大的公共卫生负担。尽管目前的治疗方法能够控制疾病进展，但需要终生治疗和监测，因为在治疗过程中会产生耐药性，并且在停药后经常发生重新激活。因此，肝细胞癌的发生减少了，但并未消除。HBV 治疗失败的一个主要原因是无法根除或灭活病毒共价闭合环状 DNA (cccDNA)，它是病毒基因组的一种稳定游离形式，由宿主组蛋白和非组蛋白修饰。越来越多的证据表明，cccDNA 的表观遗传修饰有助于病毒复制和慢性 HBV 感染的结果。这里，