Anti-hepatitis C Virus Strategy Targeting the Entry Steps

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major leading cause of chronic severe liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The recent direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) for the treatment of HCV infection offer very high cure rates, but DAAs are vulnerable to drug resistance because HCV is an RNA virus, which generally has very high mutation rates. DAA resistance-associated variants of HCV could reduce the effectiveness of DAAs in the future. Thus, the continuous development of new anti-HCV drugs against different target molecules is needed. We have been studying the host factors involved in HCV entry into cells. From those studies, we obtained novel candidates for host-targeting anti-HCV entry inhibitors, such as monoclonal antibodies against HCV receptors, which can be used together with DAAs. In this symposium review, we present and discuss our recent work on anti-HCV strategies targeting HCV entry steps.