학위논문(박사)--서울대학교 대학원 :의과대학 의학과,2019. 8. 김진욱.Background: Methylation suppresses transcriptional activity of hepatitis B virus (HBV) covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in hepatocytes and this may contribute to its low replicative activity during the inactive stage of chronic HBV infection. However, the exact mechanisms of methylation are not known. It has been reported short hairpin RNAs induce methylation of the HBV genome in hepatoma cell lines, and that the microRNA (miR) 17-92 cluster negatively regulates HBV replication in human hepatoma cells. Moreover, miR-20a, a member of the miR 17-92 cluster, has sequence homology with the short hairpin RNA that induces HBV methylation. In this study, I tested the hypothesis that miR-20a functio...