Interferon is important for anti-viral defense of the host. The E2, NS3/4A, and NS5A proteins of hepatitis C virus (HCV) have recently been reported to confront anti-viral action induced by interferon. However, roles of the individual HCV proteins in anti-interferon action are still not well understood. We have isolated an HCV strain, HCV-K, from a patient with acute hepatitis. Nucleotide seque...

Introduction Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of brain caused by either host immune response or viral infection. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), viral encephalitis is predominantly caused by Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) which belongs to genus Flavivirus and family Flaviviridae. JEV is the main cause of viral encephalitis in many countries of Asia with an estimated 68...

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 protease cleaves the viral polyprotein at specific sites to release the putative components of the HCV replication machinery. Selective inhibition of this enzyme is predicted to block virus replication, and NS3 is thus considered an attractive candidate for development of anti-HCV therapeutics. To set up a system for analysis of NS3 protease activity in cultured ...

BVDV, currently classified in the pestivirus genus of the family Flaviviridae, are small, enveloped viruses having a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome. The BVDV genome is approximately 12.3 kb in length with a 5'-nontranslated region (NTR), a single large open reading frame (ORF), and a 3'-NTR lacking a poly(A)tail. The 5'-NTR contains an internal ribosome entry site that initiates tran...

We have discovered a novel class of compounds active against hepatitis C virus (HCV), using a surrogate cellular system, HCV replicon cells. The leading compound in the series, ACH-806 (GS-9132), is a potent and specific inhibitor of HCV. The selection of resistance replicon variants against ACH-806 was performed to map the mutations conferring resistance to ACH-806 and to determine cross-resis...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has emerged as the major pathogen of liver diseases in recent years leading to worldwide blood-transmitted chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Accurate diagnosis for differentiation of hepatitis C from other viruses is thus of pivotal importance for proper treatment. In this work we developed a recombinant multiepitope protein (rMEHCV) for h...

The molecular basis of the low-pH activation of the helicase encoded by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was examined using either a full-length NS3 protein/NS4A cofactor complex or truncated NS3 proteins lacking the protease domain, which were isolated from three different viral genotypes. All proteins unwound RNA and DNA best at pH 6.5, which demonstrate that conserved NS3 helicase domain amino ac...