人丙肝病毒的结构生物学研究进展

Advances in structural biology of human hepatitis C virus

丙型肝炎在全球范围内继续传播,每年增加300万新感染病例。丙型肝炎病毒(Hepatitis virus, HCV)属于黄病毒科肝炎病毒属的病毒,被认为是肝硬化和肝细胞癌的主要病因。HCV具有单个正链RNA基因组,其编码由大约3 000个氨基酸组成的多聚蛋白前体。该蛋白在多个位点被切割生成结构蛋白和非结构蛋白。过去几年中,在阐明HCV蛋白质的结构方面取得了很大进展,其中大部分蛋白质可作为抗病毒靶标进行研究。但是,HCV蛋白在病毒生命周期期间执行多种功能,且这些功能可以通过不同的结构构象和/或与病毒和/或细胞蛋白的相互作用进行调节。本文总结了近几年在HCV结构生物学领域的现有知识并介绍该领域的最新进展。

Hepatitis C has been spreading worldwide, with 3 million new infections each year. Hepatitis C virus(hepatitis virus, HCV) belongs to the genus Hepatitis virus of the Flaviviridae and is considered to be the main cause of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV has a single positive-stranded RNA genome encoded by approximately 3 000 amino acids. The precursor protein is cleaved at multiple sites to generate structural and non-structural proteins. In the past few years, great progress has been made in elucidating the structure of HCV proteins, most of which are being investigated as antiviral targets. However, HCV proteins respond to multiple functions during the viral life cycle, and these functions can be controlled by different structural conformations and/or interactions with viruses and/or cellular proteins. This paper summarizes the current knowledge in the field of structural biology of HCV in recent years and highlights recent advances in this area.