The mature core protein of the Hepatitis C virus (HCVC173) carrying pelB as a signal peptide (PelB::core) was overexpressed in Escherichia coli as 18% and 23.3% of the host’s total protein, in flask and fermentor cultivation, respectively. A final specific yield of 25 ± 1 mg HCVC173/g dry cell weight and an overallproductivity of 51±1 mg HCVC173/l/h were obtained in the stirred-tank ferme...

introduction: hepatitis c virus (hcv) is the major cause of acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. because of increasing number of infected patients throughout the world, various studies are concentrated on development of high quality diagnostic tests and genotyping in various regions of the world. methods: in this study, we used rt-pcr to isolate and a...

Hepatocytes are the primary targets of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). While immunosuppressive roles of HCV core protein have been found in several studies, it remains uncertain whether core protein expressed in hepatocytes rather than in immune cells affects the CD8+ T cell response. In order to transduce genes selectively into hepatocytes, we developed a baculoviral vector system that enabled pr...

Over 130 million people are infected chronically with hepatitis C virus (HCV), which, together with HBV, is the leading cause of liver disease. Novel small molecule inhibitors of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) are needed to complement or replace current treatments based on pegylated interferon and ribavirin, which are only partially successful and plagued with side-effects. Assembly of the virion is i...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major etiological agent of blood-borne non-A non-B hepatitis and a leading cause of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. HCV core protein is a multifunctional protein with regulatory functions in cellular transcription and virus-induced transformation and pathogenesis. Here we report on the identification of a bZIP nuclear transcription protein ...

hepatitis c virus (hcv) is an important agent causing chronic liver infection, which often leads to liver cirrhosis and lethal hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). at present, there is no effective hcv vaccine for prevention of hepatic disease and the standard treatment is neither economical nor fully effective in all the patients. however, vaccination based on structural and nonstructural proteins ...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a causal agent of the chronic liver infection. To understand HCV morphogenesis, we studied the assembly of HCV structural proteins in insect cells. We constructed recombinant baculovirus expression vectors consisting of either HCV core alone, core-E1, or core-E1-E2. These structural proteins were expressed in insect cells and were examined to assemble into particles. ...

CD55 limits excessive complement activation on the host cell surface by accelerating the decay of C3 convertases. In this study, we observed that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection of hepatocytes or HCV core protein expression in transfected hepatocytes upregulated CD55 expression at the mRNA and protein levels. Further analysis suggested that the HCV core protein or full-length (FL) genome enha...

Persistent infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is associated with the development of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. To examine the oncogenic potential of the HCV core gene product, primary rat embryo fibroblasts (REFs) were transfected with the core gene in the presence or absence of the H-ras oncogene. In contrast to a previous report (R. B. Ray, L. M. Lagging, K. Meyer, and ...