Cultured Fetal Hepatocytes Maintain Growth of Hepatitis C Virus

Virologists have developed a technique for maintaining the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in culture, which should promote research seeking to produce a vaccine against this dangerous pathogen.

HCV infection underlies a liver syndrome characterized by liver inflammation, cirrhosis, and/or hepatocellular carcinoma. The virus infects approximately 170,000,000 people worldwide and is a prime cause for liver transplantation.

Investigators at the University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle, USA) employed a novel human fetal hepatocyte culture system. The cultured hepatocytes could support growth of HCV either by being infected with viruses taken from the blood of an infected individual or by being transfected with full-length in vitro-transcribed genotype 1a HCV RNA.

After infection or transfection, the production of active virus particles was demonstrated by the ability of media from these cells to infect naive hepatocytes. Virus particles obtained from the cultures were examined by electron microscopy and shown to possess the expected size and shape of HCV virus particles.

The study, which was published in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Pathology, concluded with the observation that, "This culture system may be used to study the responses of non-transformed human hepatocytes to HCV infection, to analyze serum infectivity, and to clone novel HCVs from infected patients.




Related Links:
University of Washington School of Medicine