Researchers have uncovered a method to mimic the hepatitis C in rodents. In work published in Science, the team of researchers describes how they discovered a virus that is closely related to hepatitis C, but is able to infect rats and mice. The researchers found that this new animal model recapitulates much of the human disease, a breakthrough that should accelerate hepatitis C vaccine research.
Researchers around the world rely heavily on animal models to study human disease. "We need to use animals to watch the disease develop over time and monitor how the immune system responds," explains lead author on the new research. "This hasn't been feasible for the hepatitis C virus, which has made our work very difficult."
The problem is that hepatitis C is a highly specific virus, infecting only humans and chimpanzees. This means that researchers must rely on blood samples and liver biopsies from infected patients to study the disease. These limited and infrequent samples provide only partial information about how the disease progresses and make it difficult to test new vaccines.
In 2014, however, there was an unexpected breakthrough. While studying the pathogens that infect common rats on the streets of New York City, Ian Lipkin, a professor at Columbia University, discovered a rodent hepacivirus that belongs to the same family of viruses as hepatitis C. Lipkin and his colleague Amit Kapoor quickly shared the virus with the Rice lab, hoping that it would enable them to create a rodent version of the disease.
Mice are the preferred animal model for much of modern biological research, with a host of genetic tools and techniques that make mechanistic studies possible. The researchers set out to explore whether the rat virus could also infect mice. They isolated the hepacivirus from rats and exposed standard laboratory mice to the disease. The experiment worked: the mice developed a hepacivirus infection that mimicked many of the features of human hepatitis C.
There was one notable difference, however. "In human patients, hepatitis C virus infection has two outcomes," author explains. "Initially, it is acute, and a small percentage of patients fully recover from infection. However, most people progress to a chronic form of the disease that will continue to affect them unless they are treated." The team found that mice with a healthy immune system experience the acute form of the disease and then recover, while immune-compromised animals become chronically infected and remain so even after their immune systems are restored.
The researchers are now using their new animal models to gain insight into how hepatitis C infection progresses, and to understand how the body reacts. "This research will help unravel mechanisms of liver infection, virus clearance, and disease mechanisms," senior author says, " which should prove valuable as we work to develop and test hepatitis C vaccines that can help to finally eradicate the disease around the world."
https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/20161-new-animal-models-hepatitis-c-pave-way-vaccine/
Latest News
A vascularized model of the human liver regeneration
Norovirus and other "stomach viruses" can spread through saliva
GPUs to discover human brain connectome
Computer models predict Face dissimilarity
Activation of a glycolytic enzyme in the metastasis of pancreatic cancer
Other Top Stories
Why women with many children show evidence of accelerated aging?
Undruggable target now made druggable!
Apoptosis spreads through perpetuating waves!
New understanding on cell signaling complex
Technology to identify protein modification
Protocols
Light and electron microscopic imaging of synaptic vesicle endocytosis at mouse hippocampal cultures
FLAMBE: A kinetic fluorescence polarization assay to study activation of monomeric BAX
Single-cell mass spectrometry
A behavioral paradigm for measuring perceptual distances in mice
Rapid detection of an Ebola biomarker with optical microring resonators
Publications
Conserved meningeal lymphatic drainage circuits in mice and humans
Junctional instability in neuroepithelium and network hyperexcitability in a focal cortical dyspl…
A vascularized model of the human liver mimics regenerative responses
Mobilization-based chemotherapy-free engraftment of gene-edited human hematopoietic stem cells
Enteric viruses replicate in salivary glands and infect through saliva
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
Lipids
Cell biology of carbohydrate metabolism
RNA interference (RNAi)
RNA structure and functions
Posters
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CANCER–KIDNEY AND BLADDER
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CANCER–PROSTATE, TESTICULAR, AND PENILE
ASCO-2020-GYNECOLOGIC CANCER