The role of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A protease in ablating the signaling pathway involved in the production of alpha/beta interferon (IFN-α/β) suggests a relationship between NS3/4A proteolytic activity and a patient's response to IFN-based therapy. To identify viral factors associated with the HCV treatment response, we analyzed the pretreatment NS3/4A protease gene quasispecies compo...

Patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection for whom prior treatment of HCV with interferon-ribavirin has failed may require subsequent treatment with new HCV protease inhibitors (PIs). We evaluated the diversity of HCV nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) in 26 HCV- and HIV-coinfected patients receiving stable antiretroviral therapy (ART) who were treated ...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) possesses multiple enzyme activities. The N-terminal one-third of NS3 primarily functions as a serine protease, while the remaining two-thirds of NS3 serve as a helicase and nucleoside triphosphatase. Whether the multiple enzyme activities of NS3 are functionally interdependent and/or modulated by other viral NS proteins remains unclear. We ...

BACKGROUND Recent evidence suggests the neurotrophic potential of hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV NS3 protein is one of the potent antigens of this virus mediating inflammatory response in different cell types. Microglia being the immune surveillance cells in the central nervous system (CNS), the inflammatory potential of NS3 on microglia was studied. Role of toll like receptor (TLR) ligands Pam2C...

The N-terminal 198 residues of NS3 (NS3-N) of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) subtype 1b obtained from 29 patients, as well as full-length NS3 (NS3-Full), were analysed for their subcellular localization, interaction with the tumour suppressor p53 and serine protease activity in the presence and absence of the viral cofactor NS4A. Based on the subcellular-localization patterns in the absence of NS4A, N...

Background: Measurement models inform the approach to assess a measure’s validity and also how measure is understood, applied interpreted. With preference-based measures, it generally accepted that they are formative; however, if without preferences, may be reflective, formative</n...

HCV NS3 protein plays a central role in viral polyprotein processing and RNA replication. We demonstrate that the NS3 protease (NS3(pro)) domain alone can specifically bind to HCV-IRES RNA, predominantly in the SLIV region. The cleavage activity of the NS3 protease domain is reduced upon HCV-RNA binding. More importantly, NS3(pro) binding to the SLIV hinders the interaction of La protein, a cel...

In recent years, clinical symptoms resulting from West Nile virus (WNV) infection have worsened in severity, with an increased frequency in neuroinvasive diseases among the elderly. As there are presently no successful therapies against WNV for use in humans, continual efforts to develop new chemotherapeutics against this virus are highly desired. The viral NS2B-NS3 protease is a promising targ...

BACKGROUND In spite of dozens of clinical trials to establish effective therapeutic and/or preventive vaccine to resolve HCV infection, no real vaccine has been proved to date. Genetic vaccines based on replication-defective adenoviruses have proved to elicit strong and long lasting T-cell responses against a number of viral antigens and are even currently being used for vaccine trials in human...

The hepatitis C virus nonstructural (NS) 3/4A protease sequence is highly conserved for reasons not fully understood. We determined the protease activity in 181 NS3/4A gene products in which each protease residue was replaced by alanine or glycine. Unexpectedly, most (87%) protease residues could be replaced and protease activity would be retained. Using these data, we were able to identify a h...