Rb. Ray et al., TRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATION OF CELLULAR AND VIRAL PROMOTERS BY THE HEPATITIS-C VIRUS CORE PROTEIN, Virus research, 37(3), 1995, pp. 209-220
The genomic region encoding the hepatitis C virus (HCV) core protein w
as cloned into a mammalian expression vector to study its role on the
transcriptional regulation of cellular proto-oncogene and viral promot
ers. Using a transient transfection assay in human hepatocellular carc
inoma (HepG2) cells, we demonstrate that the HCV core protein activate
s the human c-myc, Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat (LTR), and
simian virus 40 (SV40) early promoters; and suppresses the c-fos promo
ter and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) LTR activity. The
transcriptional regulation of cellular proto-oncogenes by the HCV core
protein suggests possible involvement of the core protein in the dere
gulation of normal hepatocyte growth and hepatocarcinogenesis.