Hepatitis C virus (HCV) chronically infects approximately 170 million people worldwide, with an increased risk of developing cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The study of HCV replication and pathogenesis has been hampered by the lack of an efficient stable cell culture system and small-animal models of HCV infection and propagation. In an effort to develop a robust HCV infection system, ...

The NS5A protein of hepatitis C virus (HCV) plays roles in both virus genome replication and assembly. NS5A comprises three domains, of these domain I is believed to be involved exclusively in genome replication. In contrast, domains II and III are required for the production of infectious virus particles and are largely dispensable for genome replication. Domain I is highly conserved between H...

conclusions the in-house 1 step taqman real time rt-pcr assay showed acceptable performance characteristics. our study presents the robustness and cost-effectiveness of the method for detection and quantification of hcv rna. methods the primers and probe were selected from a highly conserved region of the hcv genome, which allowed the detection of 4 common hcv genotypes in iran. using 4 quantif...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects 2 to 3% of the world population and is a leading cause of liver diseases such as fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Many aspects of HCV study, ranging from molecular virology and antiviral drug development to drug resistance profiling, were supported by straightforward assays of HCV replication and infection. Among these assays, the HCV-dependent ...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, noncoding RNA molecules that play important roles in the regulation of gene expression of the cell. Recent studies have described cytoplasmic RNA virus genomederived miRNAs. Moreover, miRNAs have also been encountered in the reverse strand of the viral mRNA, revealing the presence of miRNAs in replication intermediaries. In order to get insight into the possible ro...

In the core protein-coding region of hepatitis C virus (HCV), evidence exists for both phylogenetically conserved RNA structures and a +1 alternative reading frame (ARF). To investigate its role in HCV infection, we introduced four stop codons into the ARF of a genotype 1a H77 molecular clone. The changes did not alter the core protein sequence, but were predicted to disrupt RNA secondary struc...

RNA interference represents an exciting new technology that could have therapeutic applications for the treatment of viral infections. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic liver disease and affects >270 million individuals worldwide. The HCV genome is a single-stranded RNA that functions as both a messenger RNA and replication template, making it an attractive target for the stud...

Treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been met with less than satisfactory results due primarily to its resistance to and significant side effects from alpha interferon (IFN-alpha). New classes of safe and broadly acting treatments are urgently needed. Cyclosporine (CsA), an immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory drug for organ transplant patients, has recently been shown to be hi...

In 1989, scientists at Chiron (acquired by Novartis in 2006), in collaboration with a CDC researcher, first reported the molecular cloning of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome from serum samples of patients diagnosed with Non-A Non-B viral hepatitis [1]. After the discovery of HCV, tremendous progress has been made toward better understanding the virus itself and its associated chronic hepatitis C...

Multiple conserved structural cis-acting regulatory elements have been recognized both in the coding and untranslated regions (UTRs) of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome. For example, the cis-element 5BSL3.2 in the HCV-coding region has been predicted to use both its apical and internal loops to interact with the X RNA in the 3'-UTR, with the IIId domain in the 5'-UTR and with the Alt sequence...