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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 7, 2016; 22(1): 176-187
Published online Jan 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i1.176
Autophagy and microRNA in hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma
Shan-Ying Wu, Sheng-Hui Lan, Hsiao-Sheng Liu
Shan-Ying Wu, Sheng-Hui Lan, Hsiao-Sheng Liu, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
Shan-Ying Wu, Sheng-Hui Lan, Hsiao-Sheng Liu, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
Hsiao-Sheng Liu, Center of Infectious Disease and Signaling Research, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception, literature review, organization, drafting, critical revision and editing.
Supported by Ministry of Science and Technology (NSC 101-2320-B-006-025-MY3).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest and no financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hsiao-Sheng Liu, PhD, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1 University Road, Tainan 701, Taiwan. a713@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Telephone: +886-6-2353535 Fax: +886-6-2082705
Received: July 14, 2015
Peer-review started: July 29, 2015
First decision: August 31, 2015
Revised: September 15, 2015
Accepted: October 26, 2015
Article in press: October 26, 2015
Published online: January 7, 2016
Processing time: 161 Days and 19.9 Hours
Abstract

Approximately 350 million people worldwide are chronically infected by hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV causes severe liver diseases including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In about 25% of affected patients, HBV infection proceeds to HCC. Therefore, the mechanisms by which HBV affects the host cell to promote viral replication and its pathogenesis have been the subject of intensive research efforts. Emerging evidence indicates that both autophagy and microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in HBV replication and HBV-related hepatocarcinogenesis. In this review, we summarize how HBV induces autophagy, the role of autophagy in HBV infection, and HBV-related tumorigenesis. We further discuss the emerging roles of miRNAs in HBV infection and how HBV affects miRNAs biogenesis. The accumulating knowledge pertaining to autophagy and miRNAs in HBV replication and its pathogenesis may lead to the development of novel strategies against HBV infection and HBV-related HCC tumorigenesis.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus; Autophagy; MicroRNA; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Viral replication

Core tip: A number of reviews have described autophagy and microRNAs (miRNAs) in the hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related tumorigenesis. However, few reviews have provided insights into the relationships among autophagy, miRNAs, HBV biogenesis and hepatocarcinogenesis. In this review, we describe the emerging role of autophagy and miRNAs in HBV replication and pathogenesis. Recent studies are reviewed in the following sections: (1) the mechanism by which HBV induces autophagy; (2) the effect of HBV-induced autophagy on HBV replication; (3) the relationship between autophagy and HBV in HBV-related hepatocarcinogenesis; (4) the mechanism by which miRNAs affects HBV replication; and (5) the regulation of miRNAs biogenesis by HBV.