Dear Community,
My name is Dr. Jochen Wettengel, and I lead a junior research group at the Institute of Virology at the Technical University of Munich.
We all know how serious chronic hepatitis B can be for those affected. Yet, we still don’t fully understand how and why it develops. How does the virus enter our cells and why our immune system fails to detect it for so many years?
Our research focuses on the very first steps of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. One key question we’re exploring is: why can the virus enter liver cells (called hepatocytes), but not other types of cells, like those in our lungs?
Let’s take a closer look at what cells actually are. You can think of them as tiny factories that produce important products for our body, especially proteins. Viruses sneak into these factories in different ways and hijack the cell’s machinery to make copies of themselves.
HBV, however, only infects liver cells. We believe this is because the “gateways” the virus use to get inside are only present in liver cells, or because the virus has found a very clever way to unlock a specific entrance.
To study this, we modified the virus so that it changes the color of the cell once it enters. Imagine a factory where the lights switch from yellow to red as soon as the virus gets in. This allows us to clearly distinguish infected cells from healthy ones. Like a spot-the-difference puzzle, we can compare the two and figure out how the virus managed to enter.
Last year, using this method, we discovered that HBV attaches to a human protein called apolipoprotein E. This protein helps guide the virus to the liver and lets it enter the cells, like an access card for factory workers.
We hope our research will reveal more of the tricks and tools the virus uses to infect liver cells. Once we understand these mechanisms, we can develop targeted treatments to block the virus from entering and protect people from HBV infection.
Thank you for your interest in our work!
Warm regards,
Jochen
