美建立丙肝病毒胎肝细胞培养系统

 
病毒学家开发了一种技术，能够培养维持丙型肝炎病毒(HCV)，这就能够促进研发疫苗对抗这种病原的研究。

华盛顿大学医学院(Seattle, USA)的科研人员使用了一种新的人胎肝细胞培养系统。培养的肝细胞能够支持HCV生长，既能够被来自感染患者血液中的病毒感染，也能够被全长体外转录的1a基因型HCV RNA转染。

在感染或者转染之后，来自这些细胞培养液能够感染非感染肝细胞，从而证实了有活性病毒颗粒的生成。使用电子显微镜检测这些培养得到的病毒颗粒，发现这些病毒具有预期的大小和HCV病毒颗粒的形状。

这项研究发表在2007年2月出版的《美国病理学期刊》之上。
 
Cultured Fetal Hepatocytes Maintain Growth of Hepatitis C Virus
 
Virologists have developed a technique for maintaining the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in culture, which should promote research seeking to produce a vaccine against this dangerous pathogen.

Investigators at the University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle, USA) employed a novel human fetal hepatocyte culture system. The cultured hepatocytes could support growth of HCV either by being infected with viruses taken from the blood of an infected individual or by being transfected with full-length in vitro-transcribed genotype 1a HCV RNA.

After infection or transfection, the production of active virus particles was demonstrated by the ability of media from these cells to infect naive hepatocytes. Virus particles obtained from the cultures were examined by electron microscopy and shown to possess the expected size and shape of HCV virus particles.

The study was published in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Pathology.