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Hepatitis C virus core protein does not inhibit apoptosis in human hepatoma cells
F L Dumoulin1, A vsn dem Bussche, J Söhne
1Department of Medicine I, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Background:
Viral persistence is a major problem after infection with the hepatitis C virus. Recently, it has been reported that hepatitis C virus core protein inhibits cis-platin induced apoptosis in human cervical carcinoma cells and apoptosis induced by overexpression of c-myc in Chinese hamster ovary cells.
Materials And Methods:
This study investigated whether different variants of hepatitis C virus core or E2 protein interfere with tumour necrosis factor alpha or Fas (CD95/ APO-1) antibody-induced programmed cell death in transiently transfected human hepatoma (HepG2) cells.
Results:
While neither full length or C-terminally truncated variants of hepatitis C virus core protein nor hepatitis C virus E2 protein inhibited tumour necrosis factor alpha- or Fas antibody-induced apoptosis, a strong inhibition was observed with the cowpox virus cytokine response modifier A protein.
Conclusions:
Thus, it is unlikely that hepatitis C virus core or E2 protein inhibit apoptosis mediated by apoptosis-signalling pathways sensitive to cytokine response modifier A protein. Discrepancies to previous reports probably reflect specific effects of hepatitis C virus core protein on different apoptotic pathways and/ or cell lines.