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Virologie. Volume 8, Number 4, 281-95, juillet-août 2004, revue

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Author(s) : I Imbert, M Dimitrova, M Wolf, C Schuster

Summary : Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was identified in 1989 thanks to the advances in molecular biology. HCV infects essentially hepatocytes and is an enveloped virus harbouring a positive RNA genome. About 3% of the world population (more than 200 million people) are infected with HCV. For 80% of them the infection causes chronic hepatitis which may lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma within a period of 10 to 15 years. The different mechanisms, which are responsible for the persistence of infection, remain unknown. Chronicity may be due, at least in part, to immune evasion, genetic variation and subtle modulation of viral translation and replication. The aim of this review is to account for the strategies developped in order to study this virus unable to propagate efficiently in vitro and in small animal models.

Keywords : hepatitis C Virus, translation, replication, modulation, replicons