Construction of recombinant vaccinia virus expressing HCV genes

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains the leading cause of non-A, non-B hepatitis, and a major indicator for orthotopic liver transplantation. To date, finding a cure or even a commonly effective therapy for infection with HCV has proven to be an elusive goal. One major problem that has hampered attempts to develop antiviral agents is the ongoing inability to grow the virus in tissue culture. Without an efficient in vitro system for the propagation of HCV, it is difficult to generate the large amounts of viral protein needed for this sort of study; nor can the effects of known antiviral agents be assessed on the replication of HCV. Recently, some laboratories have reported preliminary evidence of HCV replication in cultured cells (1,2), but even the best of these systems does not produce significant amounts of progeny virus. Although these methods may be applicable in the future, at present they are not yet practical.