ABSTRACT
The human La protein is recently identified as a host factor potentially involved in the post-transcriptional regulation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) RNA. The La binding site is mapped to a predicted stem-loop structure within a region shared by all HBV RNAs, and it is known that human La protein protected HBV RNA against Rnase-mediated degradation. HLa mutants lost the ability of binding and protecting HBV RNA, which make it easy for HBV RNA to degrade and the virus replication to terminate. This review summarizes the latest investigation about the interaction of La protein,HBV RNA and Nuclear RNases, and discusses the possible mechanisms of HBV RNA degradation, the effect of La protein and its mutants on the translation initiation of HBV RNA, and the replication of the virus.