VIROLOGY Comment on Specific and nonhepatotoxic degradation of nuclear hepatitis B virus cccDNA

Lucifora et al. (Research Articles, 14March 2014, p. 1221) report that the hepatitis B virus (HBV) transcriptional template, a long-lived covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) molecule, is degraded noncytolytically by agents that up-regulate APOBEC3A and 3B. If these results can be independently confirmed, they would represent a critical first step toward development of a cure for the 400 million patients who are chronically infected by HBV.