Cellular response to gene expression profiles of different hepatitis C virus core proteins in the Huh-7 cell line...

In the current investigation, we constructed recombinants of expression of HCV genotype 1b, 2a, and 4d whole core proteins and established a human hepatoma (Huh-7) cell line which expressed different core proteins constitutively. In the Affymetrix human gene chip, the HG-U133 A and B were employed for identification of variant core protein gene expression in the Huh-7 cell line. In data analysis, we applied a threshold that eliminated all genes that were not increased or decreased by at least a 3-fold change in a comparison between transfected cells and control cells. All of these genes were annotated by using NetAffx analysis through the Affymetrix website and categorized on the basis of their biological processes. The microarray analysis result suggested that the gene expression profiles caused by three kinds of core proteins were mainly shown in metabolism, signal transduction, protease activity, immune responses, etc. and that some pathogenesis/oncogenesis, apoptosis, or anti-apoptosis gene expression were up/down-regulated simultaneously in the Huh-7 cell line. In conclusion, the gene expression profiles of variant core proteins were implicated in HCV replication, pathogenesis, or oncogenesis in the Huh-7 cell line, which is useful for our understanding of HCV variant core protein biological function and its pathogenic mechanism.