Differential effects on apoptosis induction in hepatocyte lines by stable expression of hepatitis B virus X protein

Figure 2 HBx activates the HBV-Enhancer I in vivo and can partially counteract a repression by p53 induced by UV irradiation. CAT expression driven by Enhancer I of HBV is indicated as bars. AML12 (A) or HepG2 (B) derived cell lines expressing HBx (HepG2-X8 or AML12-HBx9) are indicated in black and the controls which did not express functional HBx (AML12 or HepG2-XM2) are shown in white bars. The cell lines were transfected with a CAT-expression vector driven by enhancer I of HBV in triplicate. Four hours after transfection, the cultures were irradiated with the indicated dose of UV. The lysis of the cells was done 18 h post irradiation.