[Mutual interaction between hepatitis C virus core protein and translin, a recombination hotspot binding protein]

To study the role of the core protein of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in HCV pathogenesis and investigate the molecular mechanism of this protein in tumorigenesis.

By using the yeast two hybrid system 3, the bait plasmids of the gene of the core protein of HCV was constructed and transfected into AH109 yeast strain. Then this transfected AH109 yeast was mated with Y187 yeast containing liver cDNA library plasmids and cultured on quadropledropout (QDO) medium covered with x-alpha-gal and assayed for alpha-gal activity. The blue colonies growing on QOD were collected to extract the plasmids to transform Escherichia coli. Plasmids were extracted from the bacterium and sequenced. After bioinformatic analysis translin, a recombination hotspot binding protein interacting with HCV core protein was found. To further prove the interaction between translin protein and HCV core protein translation was performed by using reticulocyte lysate and immunoprecipitation in vitro.

Among the 30 positive colonies, a colony was translin. The interaction between HCV core protein and translin protein could be proved not only in yeast, but also in vitro.

The core protein of HCV can interact with translin protein, this can explain partly the tumorigenesis of HCV.