Ceelen Liesbeth, Lieveld Marusya, Forsyth Ramses, Vinken Mathieu
Pathlicon, Reibroekstraat 13, B-9940, Evergem, Belgium.
Department of Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Center for Pharmaceutical Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, B-1090, Brussels, Belgium.
Hepatol Int. 2013 Jun;7(2):394-9. doi: 10.1007/s12072-013-9428-1. Epub 2013 Feb 14.
Hepatitis virus infections, mainly hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections, constitute a major problem for public health since they have a worldwide distribution and because they are associated with hepatocellular carcinoma and death. Current anti-HBV vaccines seem to be effective in the majority of people. However, an important issue waiting to be tackled nowadays is how to cure patients with chronic hepatitis B. Moreover, no vaccine is available today for the prevention of HCV infection. Therefore, the use of adequate in vitro infection systems is a prerequisite for the molecular understanding of the infection events of these viruses, which could result in the development of novel powerful therapeutics. In this respect, the HepaRG cell line exhibits a hepatocyte-like morphology and displays drug metabolism capacity similar to that of primary hepatocytes. HepaRG cells have yet been proven to be a useful tool in the study of viral infections, particularly for deciphering the mechanism of HBV entry into hepatocytes.
肝炎病毒感染，主要是乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）和丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染，是公共卫生领域的一个重大问题，因为它们在全球范围内传播，并且与肝细胞癌和死亡相关。目前的抗HBV疫苗似乎对大多数人有效。然而，当今亟待解决的一个重要问题是如何治愈慢性乙型肝炎患者。此外，目前尚无预防HCV感染的疫苗。因此，使用合适的体外感染系统是从分子层面理解这些病毒感染过程的先决条件，这可能会带来新型强效治疗方法的开发。在这方面，HepaRG细胞系呈现出类似肝细胞的形态，并表现出与原代肝细胞相似的药物代谢能力。HepaRG细胞已被证明是研究病毒感染的有用工具，特别是在破译HBV进入肝细胞的机制方面。
