MicrobeWorld

Hepatitis C virus has evolved to invade and hijack the basic machinery of the human liver cell to ensure its survival and spread. Researchers at the University of North have discovered how hepatitis C binds with and repurposes a basic component of cellular metabolism known as a microRNA to help protect and replicate the virus.

In a paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec. 17, researchers in the laboratory of Stanley M. Lemon, MD, professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology and member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for Translational Immunology, and the UNC Center for Infectious Disease, outline the critical role the microRNA known as miR-122 plays in the life cycle of the hepatitis C virus.

A chronic blood-borne virus that attacks the liver, hepatitis C infects more than four million in the United States and more than 130 million worldwide. Deaths from the infection surpass those due to HIV/AIDS in the U.S. The virus is currently the leading factor in liver transplantation and a major cause of liver cancer, the third most fatal cancer worldwide and the ninth most deadly in the United States. Chronic hepatitis virus infections factor into more than two-thirds of liver cancer deaths.