Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: In-vitro model systems to study Hepatitis C Virus | Ashfaq et al. Genetic Vaccines and Therapy 2011 9 7 http content 9 1 7 z GENETIC VACCINES AND THERAPY REVIEW Open Access In-vitro model systems to study Hepatitis C Virus Usman Ali Ashfaq1 Shaheen N Khan1 Zafar Nawaz2 and Sheikh Riazuddin3 Abstract Hepatitis C virus HCV is a major cause of chronic liver diseases including steatosis cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently there is no vaccine available for prevention of HCV infection due to high degree of strain variation. The current treatment of care Pegylated interferon a in combination with ribavirin is costly has significant side effects and fails to cure about half of all infections. The development of in-vitro models such as HCV infection system HCV sub-genomic replicon HCV producing pseudoparticles HCVpp and infectious HCV virion provide an important tool to develop new antiviral drugs of different targets against HCV. These models also play an important role to study virus lifecycle such as virus entry endocytosis replication release and HCV induced pathogenesis. This review summarizes the most important in-vitro models currently used to study future HCV research as well as drug design. Introduction HCV infection is a serious global health problem that affects 180 million people worldwide and 10 million people in Pakistan 1 . It is estimated that three to four million people are infected with HCV every year. HCV causes acute and chronic hepatitis which can eventually lead to permanent liver damage and hepatocellular carcinoma 2 . Of those acutely infected with HCV around 85 develop chronic infection. Approximately 70 of patients with chronic viremia develop chronic liver disease 10-20 of which develop liver cirrhosis. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year from liver failure and liver cancer caused by this disease. HCV is a small enveloped virus with a positive sense single-stranded RNA genome that encodes a large polyprotein of 3010 amino acids. The polyprotein is co- .
