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Globally, an estimated 71 million people are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). Over decades of infection, chronic HCV infection results in progressive damage to the liver and an increased risk for end stage liver disease and liver cancer, making the virus the leading cause of liver-related deaths in the United States today. While effective combination therapies have recently been developed, HCV can evolve to become resistant to these antiviral drugs, potentially resulting in treatment failures. Resistance is particularly important for one class of medications used in treatment, for which the mechanism by which it stops growth of the virus is poorly understood. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified how the class of antiviral drugs known as NS5A inhibitors interacts with the virus, and their findings show a difference between strains of HCV. These results were published in PLOS Pathogens.

See original article at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170608202150.htm