Autophagy induction plays time-dependent role in viral load of HCV infected Huh7.5 cell line

Autophagy provides an initial membranous platform for incoming hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA translation and immune evasion. Once HCV replication is established, this infrastructure will be unnecessary for translation of HCV RNA progeny. So, the autophagy plays key role in the replication and immune pathogenesis of HCV virus. The aim of this study was to study the effect of autophagy induction in Huh7.5 cell on virus titer. The Huh7.5 cell was transfected with recombinant pcDNA-Beclin1. The autophagy induction was evaluated via microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3 staining as autophagy formation marker using flow cytometry. The HCV (JFH1) was inoculated 12-h post-transfection. Next, to evaluate the viral load, viral RNA was extracted after 24 and 48 h and virus titer was calculated using real-time PCR. The result of the current study shows that the induction of autophagy before virus infection was able to enhance virus yield from 4 × 10³ copies/mL to 1 × 10⁴ copies/mL at 24-h post-infection, but reduced viral load after 48 h up to 6 × 10³ copies/mL. The study of cross-talk between autophagy and HCV may bring new hope for human intervention and treatment of HCV. Also, it opens new avenue to improve virus cultivation in cell culture and understanding HCV and host cell responses. © 2018 IUBMB Life, 71(1):41-44, 2019.