BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) contains a (+) ssRNA genome with highly conserved structural, functional RNA domains, many of them with unknown roles for the consecution of the viral cycle. Such genomic domains are candidate therapeutic targets. This study reports the functional characterization of a set of aptamers targeting the cis-acting replication element (CRE) of the HCV genome, an ess...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a worldwide health-care burden. Prevalence rates vary and the distribution of genotypes depends on geographical location. Here, the recent prevalence of HCV infections and distribution of HCV genotypes among Korean blood donors were studied. METHODS Between February 2005 and December 2009, a total of 11,064,532 donors were screened for anti-HCV and 1...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV), a positive single-stranded RNA virus, is one of the major causes of end-stage liver disease worldwide (5). The nucleotide sequence of the HCV genome is an important predictor of response to antiviral therapy (6). Genotypic analysis is used together with measurement of viral load (VL) to help in the management of patients with HCV infection (1). The 5 untranslated region...

background: due to some limitations of serological methods in diagnosis of patients infected with hiv-1 (human immunodeficiency virus) and hcv (hepatitis c virus), it is profoundly important to use molecular methods for the detecting of these infectious agents. however, the most significant problems are the exorbitant cost of these methods and the need of a thermocycler which is an expensive in...

We report the full genome sequence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) subtype 6n from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Phylogenetic analysis of the isolate 10MYKJ032 suggests that Southeast Asia might be the origin for the HCV subtype 6n and highlights the possible spread of this lineage from Southeast Asia to other regions.

S ince the discovery in 2005 of the essential role of the liver-specific microRNA, miR-122, in HCV replication (1), the mechanism by which it stimulates this process has proved elusive. In PNAS, Li et al. demonstrate thatmiR-122 acts to shield the HCV genome against degradation by the cytosolic RNA exonuclease, Xrn1 (2). Although this may be one way in which this microRNA promotes HCV replicati...

conclusions the quite sensitive in-house taqman real time rt-pcr assay was able to detect and quantify all four main hcv genotypes prevailing around all geographical regions of iran. results the lower limit detection of this in-house hcv real-time rt-pcr was determined as 100 rna copies/ml. inter- and intra-assay coefficient of variation (cv) of this in-house hcv real-time rt-pcr ranged from 0....

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) non-structural (NS) 5A protein plays an essential role in the replication of the viral RNA by the membrane-associated replication complex (RC). Recently, a putative NS5A inhibitor, BMS-790052, exhibited the highest potency of any known anti-HCV compound in inhibiting HCV replication in vitro and showed a promising clinical effect in HCV-infected patients. The precise...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the leading cause of chronic hepatitis which progresses to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) afflicting > 170 million people worldwide. HCV 3a is the most common genotype (about 70% of all genotypes) circulating in Pakistan. Expression of HCV individual gene of 3a would facilitate therapeutic and vaccines strategies against chronic HCV and liver Cirr...

Hepatitis C virus is a leading cause of human liver disease worldwide. Recent discovery of the JFH-1 isolate, capable of infecting cell culture, opens new avenues for studying HCV replication. We describe the development of a high-throughput, quantitative, genome-scale, mutational analysis system to study the HCV cis-elements and protein domains that are essential for virus replication. An HCV ...