SECRETION OF HUMAN HEPATITIS-B VIRUS IS INHIBITED BY THE IMINO SUGAR N-BUTYLDEOXYNOJIRIMYCIN

The imino sugar N-butyldeoxynojirimycin (NBDNJ) is a potent inhibitor of the oligosaccharide-trimming enzyme alpha-glucosidase I. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) contains three surface proteins (HBs proteins) of differ ent sizes that are singly or doubly N-glycosylated and are essential f or the formation of infectious virus. Therefore, the replication and s ecretion of HBV in the human hepatoma cell line HepG2 were studied in the presence of NBDNJ. In the stably HBV-transfected HepG 2.2.15 cells and in HBV-infected HepG2 cells, NBDNJ suppressed secretion of HBV pa rticles and caused intracellular retention of HBV DNA. The secretion o f subviral particles was less affected. These data suggest that inhibi tors of oligosaccharide trimming may be useful for antiviral therapy o f hepatitis B and for the study of the intracellular transport of the viral glycoproteins.