Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have now discovered why people with hepatitis C virus get liver disease. People infected with the "hard-to-kill" pathogen, which infects nearly 200 million people worldwide, attacks the liver cells energy center, the mitochondria. This dismantles the cell's innate ability to fight infection by altering the cells mitochondrial dynamics. Aleem Siddiqui, Professor of medicine and senior author, states that " the virus damages mitochondria in liver cells. Cells recognize the damage and respond to it by recruiting proteins that tell the mitochondria to eliminate the damaged area, but the repair process ends up helping the virus." He also states that, "it's like the bad part of the house is demolished to the benefit of the virus." In the researchers experiments, it showed that hepatitis C-infected cells with higher Drp1 protein levels also produced less interferon, the body's natural immune booster. These cells were also less likely to undergo apoptosis, a process that would encourage damaged cells to essentially kill themselves. While reading this, I hope to see improvement with developing a cure or type of antidote to reduce the attack or kill the attack of the pathogen on the cells mitochondria. Knowing how many people are affected by this is scary, and I'm glad to see that they are taking a step forward with this research.
Original article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140415143959.htm
Secondary article: http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-hepatitis-c-cure-20140412,0,3083638.story#axzz2z4qUMnPX
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