Perturbation of Ras-Erk and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signalling pathways by the hepatitis C virus NS5A protein

世界卫生组织估计，有1.7亿人感染了丙型肝炎病毒，每年有300万至400万新病例发生。肝炎是肝脏的一种疾病，肝脏是人体非常重要的器官。这种病毒能在肝细胞中存活多年，最终导致肝功能衰竭和肝癌。虽然有治疗感染的方法，但它们并不总是有效，而且往往有令人不快的副作用。迫切需要新的和更好的药物。这项研究的目的是发现这种病毒的一种成分，一种叫做NS5A的蛋白质，是如何改变被病毒感染的肝细胞的功能的，从而确保病毒的存活，并导致病毒引起的疾病。这很重要，因为如果我们能理解这种蛋白质是如何工作的，那么我们就能设计出新的化学物质来阻止它的功能。这些有可能成为治疗丙型肝炎病毒感染患者的新药。

The World Health Organisation estimates that 170 million individuals are infected with the hepatitis C virus,with 3-4 million new cases occurring each year. Hepatitis is a disease of the liver, a very important organ in the body. The virus manages to survive in liver cells for many years before leading to disease which can result both in liver failure and liver cancer. Although there are treatments for the infection, they do not always work and often have unpleasant side effects ? new and better drugs are urgently needed. This research aims to discover how one of the components of the virus, a protein called NS5A, works to alter the function of liver cells that are infected with the virus, both to ensure virus survival and contribute to the disease caused by the virus. This is important becauseif we can understand how this protein works then we may be able to devise new chemicals that prevent its function ? these could have potential as new drugs to treat patients who have hepatitis C virus infection.