Abstract
Association of lipid droplet and hepatitis C virus proteins: insights for virus replication
Highlights
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a major worldwide disease burden, with an estimated prevalence of >185 million people [1]
The authors found that the N-terminal domain interacts more strongly with lipid droplets compared with the C terminus, with almost 100% of the N-terminal domain demonstrating association compared with ϳ40% following transfection of the C-terminal domain
Moving forward, it will be important to understand how a single amino acid residue change [both with nonpolar side chains] abrogates the association of NS4B with the lipid droplet. Another key aspect of these observations is the identification of lipid droplet binding residues in NS4B that are important for HCV replication
Summary
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a major worldwide disease burden, with an estimated prevalence of >185 million people [1]. The association of HCV with lipid droplets is well known (Moradpour et al, 1996; Miyanari et al, 2007, cited in the referenced article), the molecular and biochemical mechanisms that promote this interaction remain obscure. Among the key findings of this report is the identification of specific domains and potential clusters of amino acid residues that facilitate the interaction of NS4B with the lipid droplet.
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