Douam Florian, Ding Qiang, Ploss Alexander
Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, 110 Lewis Thomas Laboratory, Washington Road, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA.
F1000Res. 2016 Feb 3;5. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.7354.1. eCollection 2016.
The past decade has seen tremendous progress in understanding hepatitis C virus (HCV) biology and its related disease, hepatitis C. Major advances in characterizing viral replication have led to the development of direct-acting anti-viral therapies that have considerably improved patient treatment outcome and can even cure chronic infection. However, the high cost of these treatments, their low barrier to viral resistance, and their inability to prevent HCV-induced liver cancer, along with the absence of an effective HCV vaccine, all underscore the need for continued efforts to understand the biology of this virus. Moreover, beyond informing therapies, enhanced knowledge of HCV biology is itself extremely valuable for understanding the biology of related viruses, such as dengue virus, which is becoming a growing global health concern. Major advances have been realized over the last few years in HCV biology and pathogenesis, such as the discovery of the envelope glycoprotein E2 core structure, the generation of the first mouse model with inheritable susceptibility to HCV, and the characterization of virus-host interactions that regulate viral replication or innate immunity. Here, we review the recent findings that have significantly advanced our understanding of HCV and highlight the major challenges that remain.
在过去十年里，我们对丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）生物学及其相关疾病丙型肝炎的认识取得了巨大进展。在表征病毒复制方面的重大进展推动了直接抗病毒疗法的发展，这些疗法显著改善了患者的治疗结果，甚至可以治愈慢性感染。然而，这些治疗方法成本高昂、对病毒耐药性的屏障较低、无法预防HCV诱发的肝癌，再加上缺乏有效的HCV疫苗，所有这些都凸显了继续努力了解这种病毒生物学特性的必要性。此外，除了为治疗提供信息外，深入了解HCV生物学特性本身对于理解相关病毒（如登革病毒，这正成为全球日益关注的健康问题）的生物学特性也极具价值。在过去几年里，HCV生物学和发病机制方面取得了重大进展，例如包膜糖蛋白E2核心结构的发现、首个对HCV具有遗传性易感性的小鼠模型的建立，以及对调节病毒复制或先天免疫的病毒-宿主相互作用的表征。在此，我们回顾了最近显著推进我们对HCV理解的研究发现，并突出了仍然存在的主要挑战。
