Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2009 Aug 4;106(31):12567-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906760106. Epub 2009 Jul 28.

Plugging the holes in hepatitis C virus antiviral therapy

Stephen D C Griffin  1
Affiliations
Comment

Plugging the holes in hepatitis C virus antiviral therapy

Stephen D C Griffin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Potential sites of action for p7 inhibitors in the HCV life cycle. p7 could function during multiple stages of HCV particle production and may also play a role during infection. As such, inhibitors could block HCV at multiple stages of the life cycle. At early stages (stage 1) p7 may interact with NS2 to promote efficient virion assembly. p7 channels in secretory vesicles can prevent their acidification (stage 2), which could protect viral glycoproteins from premature fusogenic change or alter vesicle trafficking during exocytosis. The effect of p7 inhibitors on virus entry suggests that the ion channel is incorporated into secreted virions (stage 3). After virus entry (stage 4; for simplicity, only the CD81 receptor is shown), endosome acidification (stage 5) induces fusogenic change in the viral glycoproteins and p7 potentially permits the passage of protons into the viral core, destabilizing the structure and promoting efficient uncoating (stage 6).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Hay AJ, Wolstenholme AJ, Skehel JJ, Smith MH. The molecular basis of the specific anti-influenza action of amantadine. EMBO J. 1985;4:3021–3024. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Luik P, et al. The 3-dimensional structure of a hepatitis C virus p7 ion channel by electron microscopy. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2009;106:12712–12716. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schnell JR, Chou JJ. Structure and mechanism of the M2 proton channel of influenza A virus. Nature. 2008;451:591–595. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stouffer AL, et al. Structural basis for the function and inhibition of an influenza virus proton channel. Nature. 2008;451:596–599. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Griffin SD, et al. The p7 protein of hepatitis C virus forms an ion channel that is blocked by the antiviral drug, Amantadine. FEBS Lett. 2003;535:34–38. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources