PubMed Health⌕ Search

PubMed · 16814246

Mitochondrial dysfunction in hepatitis C virus infection.

Abstract

The mechanisms of liver injury in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are poorly understood though HCV induces a state of hepatic oxidative stress that is more pronounced than that present in many other inflammatory diseases. This mini-review will focus on recent findings revealing an unexpected role of mitochondria in providing a central role in the innate immunity and in addition will illustrate the application of stably transfected human-derived cell lines, inducibly expressing the entire HCV open reading frame for in vitro studies on mitochondria. Results obtained by a comparative analysis of the respiratory chain complexes activities along with mitochondrial morpho-functional confocal microscopy imaging show a detrimental effect of HCV proteins on the cell oxidative metabolism with specific inhibition of complex I activity, decrease of mtDeltaPsi, increased production of reactive oxygen species. A possible de-regulation of calcium recycling between the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondrial network is discussed to provide new insights in the pathogenesis of hepatitis C.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

C Piccoli, R Scrima, A D'Aprile, M Ripoli, L Lecce, D Boffoli, N Capitanio. 2006-05-19. Mitochondrial dysfunction in hepatitis C virus infection.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2006.05.018

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

A computational model for bacteriophage ϕX174 gene expression.

Bacteriophage ϕX174 has been widely used as a model organism to study fundamental processes in molecular biology. However, several aspects of ϕX174 gene regulation are not fully resolved. Here we construct a computational model for ϕX174 and use the model to study gene regulation during the phage infection cycle. We estimate the relative strengths of transcription regulatory elements (promoters and terminators) by fitting the model to transcriptomics data. We show that the specific arrangement of a promoter followed immediately by a terminator, which occurs naturally in the ϕX174 genome, poses a parameter identifiability problem for the model, since the activity of one element can be partially compensated for by the other. We also simulate ϕX174 gene expression with two additional, putative transcription regulatory elements that have been proposed in prior studies. We find that the activities of these putative elements are estimated to be weak, and that variation in ϕX174 transcript abundances can be adequately explained without them. Overall, our work demonstrates that ϕX174 gene regulation is well described by the canonical set of promoters and terminators widely used in the literature.

Gene Expression Regulation, Viral↗

Regulation of KSHV lytic gene expression.

The life cycle of KSHV, latency versus lytic replication, is mainly determined at the transcriptional regulation level. A viral immediate-early gene product, replication and transcription activator (RTA), has been identified as the molecular switch for initiation of the lytic gene expression program from latency. Here we review progress on two key questions: how RTA gene expression is controlled by viral proteins and cellular signals and how RTA regulates the expression of downstream viral genes. We summarize the interactions of RTA with cellular and other viral proteins. We also discuss critical issues that must be addressed in the near future.

Gene Expression Regulation, Viral↗

HIV-1 designed to use different tRNAGln isoacceptors prefers to select tRNAThr for replication.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) causes acceleration of the synthesis of glutamine tRNA (tRNAGln) in infected cells. To investigate whether this might influence HIV-1 to utilize tRNAGln as a primer for initiation of reverse transcription, we have constructed HIV-1 proviral genomes in which the PBS and the A-loop region upstream of the PBS have been made complementary to either the anticodon region of tRNAGln,1 or tRNAGln,3 and 3' terminal 18 nucleotides of each isoacceptor of tRNAGln. RESULTS: Viruses in which the PBS was altered to be complementary to tRNAGln,1 or tRNAGln,3 with or without the A-loop all exhibited a lower infectivity than the wild type virus. Viruses with only the PBS complementary to tRNAGln,1 or tRNAGln,3 reverted to wild type following culture in SupT1 cells. Surprisingly, viruses in which the PBS and A-loop were complementary to tRNAGln,1 did not grow in SupT1 cells, while viruses in which the PBS and A-loop were made complementary to tRNAGln,3 grew slowly in SupT1 cells. Analysis of the PBS of this virus revealed that it had reverted to select tRNAThr as the primer, which shares complementarity in 15 of 18 nucleotides with the PBS complementary to tRNAGln,3. CONCLUSION: The results of these studies support the concept that the HIV-1 has preferred tRNAs that can be selected as primers for replication.

Gene Expression Regulation, Viral↗