A Proteomic Approach to Study the Biological Role of Hepatitis C Virus Protein Core+1/ARFP
Vasileios Vrazas,
Savvina Moustafa,
Manousos Makridakis,
Ioannis Karakasiliotis,
Antonia Vlahou,
Penelope Mavromara,
Katerina R. Katsani
Affiliations
Vasileios Vrazas
Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Virology, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece
Savvina Moustafa
Clinical Immunology-Rheumatology Unit, 2nd Department of Medicine and Laboratory, Hippokration General Hospital of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece
Manousos Makridakis
Centre of Basic Research, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece
Ioannis Karakasiliotis
Laboratory of Biology, Department of Medicine, Democritus University of Thrace, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece
Antonia Vlahou
Centre of Basic Research, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece
Penelope Mavromara
Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Virology, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece
Katerina R. Katsani
Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Virology, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, 68100 Alexandroupolis, Greece
Hepatitis C virus is the major cause of chronic liver diseases and the only cytoplasmic RNA virus known to be oncogenic in humans. The viral genome gives rise to ten mature proteins and to additional proteins, which are the products of alternative translation initiation mechanisms. A protein—known as ARFP (alternative reading frame protein) or Core+1 protein—is synthesized by an open reading frame overlapping the HCV Core coding region in the (+1) frame of genotype 1a. Almost 20 years after its discovery, we still know little of the biological role of the ARFP/Core+1 protein. Here, our differential proteomic analysis of stable hepatoma cell lines expressing the Core+1/Long isoform of HCV-1a relates the expression of the Core+1/Long isoform with the progression of the pathology of HCV liver disease to cancer.
