NACA as a potential cellular target of hepatitis B virus preS1 protein.

The mechanisms of the attachment and penetration of hepatitis B virus remain obscure. It has been demonstrated that the preS1 region is essential for viral assembly and infectivity, however, as its cellular receptor has still not been identified unequivocally, we used a yeast two-hybrid system to screen the cellular proteins that can interact with preS1 protein. The protein recovered from a human liver cDNA library was nascent polypeptide-associated complex alpha polypeptide. The interaction between preS1 and nascent polypeptide-associated complex alpha polypeptide was verified by mating experiment and coimmunoprecipitation of COS7 cell lysates expressing both proteins. Based on these results, we speculate that nascent polypeptide-associated complex alpha polypeptide is a functional target of hepatitis B virus preS1 protein in cells.