Hepatitis C virus NS2 protein activates cellular cyclic AMP-dependent pathways

Kyoung Mi Kim, Shi Nae Kwon, Ju Il Kang, Song Hee Lee, Sung Key Jang, Byung Yoon Ahn, Yoon Ki Kim

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Chronic infection of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) leads to liver cirrhosis and cancer. The mechanism leading to viral persistence and hepatocellular carcinoma, however, has not been fully understood. In this study, we show that the HCV infection activates cellular cAMP-dependent pathways. Expression of a luciferase reporter gene controlled by a basic promoter with the cAMP response element (CRE) was significantly elevated in human hepatoma Huh-7 cells infected with the HCV JFH1. Analysis with viral subgenomic replicons indicated that the HCV NS2 protein is responsible for the effect. Furthermore, the level of cellular transcripts whose stability is known to be regulated by cAMP was specifically reduced in cells harboring NS2-expressing replicons. These results allude to the HCV NS2 protein having a novel function of regulating cellular gene expression and proliferation through the cAMP-dependent pathway.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)948-954
    Number of pages7
    JournalBiochemical and biophysical research communications
    Volume356
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2007 May 18

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    We are grateful to Dr. T. Wakita for providing us with pJFH1, Dr. R. Bartenschlager for HCV replicon constructs, and T.D. Kim, D.J. Jun, and K.T. Kim of Pohang University of Science and Technology for technical assistance. This work was supported in part by a grant (M103KB010020-06K0201-02020) of 21C Frontier Functional Human Genome Project from the Ministry of Science and Technology in Korea, the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by the Korea government (MOST) (R01-2006-000-10194-0), and a Korea University Grant (K0518061).

    Keywords

    • Cyclic AMP
    • Hepatitis C virus
    • Nonstructural protein 2
    • Transcription

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Biophysics
    • Biochemistry
    • Molecular Biology
    • Cell Biology

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