How the Hepatitis C Virus Evades Immune Defenses: New Study Reveals Masking Strategy

How Researchers Unveiled the Mystery of Hepatitis C’s Evasion of the Immune System

Using a new method to examine virus samples, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have solved a long-standing mystery about how the hepatitis C virus evades the human body’s immune defenses.

This discovery could have an impact on how we track and treat viral diseases in general.

The Impact of Hepatitis C

An estimated 50 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis C. The hepatitis C virus can cause liver inflammation and scarring, and in worst cases, liver cancer.

Unraveling the Mystery

Hepatitis C was discovered in 1989 and is one of the most studied viruses on the planet. However, how it manages to evade the human immune system and spread throughout the body has been a mystery for decades, and Danish researchers appear to have been the first to solve it.

A new method for examining virus samples has led researchers at the University of Copenhagen and the Hvidovre Hospital to answer that the virus puts on a “mask”.

The Viral “Mask”

“Putting on a mask”, the virus can remain hidden, creating copies of itself to infect new cells. The mask disguises the virus as a molecule that is already in our cells.

Our immune system, disguised as a molecule, mistakes the virus for something harmless that we don’t need to interact with.

“How the hepatitis C virus manages to hide in liver cells without being detected by the immune system has always been a mystery,” says Associate Professor Jeppe Winter from the Department of Biology, who led the study along with Associate Professor Trols Scheele, and Professor Jens Boch from the Copenhagen Hepatitis C Program. Our discovery of a virus masking strategy is important because it could pave the way for new ways to treat viral infections, and it is possible that other types of viruses use the same technique.

Malware Masking

The mask that the hepatitis virus uses to hide in our cells is called FAD, a molecule made up of vitamin B2 and an energy-carrying ATP molecule.

FAD is vital for our cells to convert energy. The importance of FAD and its familiar appearance to our cells make it the perfect camouflage for a virulent virus.

For several years, the research team had a good idea that FAD helped the virus hide in infected cells, but they had no clear way to prove it.

To solve this problem, they turned to Arabidopsis, an experimental plant well known among researchers.

“We were desperate to find a way to prove our hypothesis when we isolated an enzyme from Arabidopsis that could split the FAD molecule into two parts,” explains Anna Sherwood from the Department of Biology, who took part in the study.

Using the enzyme, the researchers were able to break down FAD and prove that the hepatitis C virus uses it as a mask.

Other Viruses Can Use the Same Trick

Like the coronavirus and the influenza virus, hepatitis C is an RNA virus. Its genetic material consists of RNA, which must be copied after the virus enters the host.

New copies of RNA are used to take over new cells, and one end of the RNA genetic material is masked by FAD.

Other RNA viruses can use similar camouflage techniques to spread undetected by cell control systems, Jebe Winter said.

In fact, researchers have already found another virus using the same strategy. And there will probably be more.

Conclusion

The study was published in the journal Nature.

Source: Medical Express

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