In VitroInhibition of Hepatitis C Virus by Antisense Oligonucleotides in PBMC Compared to Hepatoma Cells

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

AIM: To assess the efficiency of phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide 1 (S-ODN1) on HCV translation inhibition in PBMC compared to hepatoma cells in vitro for the first time. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 34 treatment naive HCV patients. IRES domain III and IV sequence variations were tested in 45 clones from 9 HCV patients. PBMC of HCV positive patients were subjected to S-ODN in vitro. Concomitantly HepG2 cells infected by the same patient's serum were also treated with S-ODN1 for 24 and 48 hours. Cellular RNA was tested for HCV plus and minus strands by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS: Sequence variations were seen in HCV IRES domain III only while domain IV was conserved among all the tested patient's clones. S-ODN1 successfully inhibited HCV translation in HepG2 cells, while in PBMC inhibition was partial. CONCLUSION: HCV IRES domain IV is more conserved than domain IIId in genotype 4 HCV patients. S-ODN against HCV IRES domain IV was not efficient to inhibit HCV translation in PBMC under the study conditions. Further studies testing other S-ODN targeting other HCV IRES domains in PBMC should be done.