In addition, HBeAg reduction resulted from furin inhibition leads to increase in cell surface expression of immune-promoting pre-HBe[15], which is different from HBeAg reduction or loss caused by infection of HBeAg-defective variants, suggesting that furin inhibition may have less risk to let the infection develop into poorly prognostic HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B. Though it is not a traditional antiviral strategy, the direct inhibition of HBeAg secretion mediated by the immune-regulation effects may be helpful for the treatment of chronic HBV infection. The gene discussed is HBE1; the disease is infection.