{"id":38832,"date":"2025-04-28T14:24:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T12:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/?p=38832"},"modified":"2025-04-29T15:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T13:55:13","slug":"better-insights-into-the-hepatitis-d-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/better-insights-into-the-hepatitis-d-virus\/","title":{"rendered":"Better insights into the hepatitis D virus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hepatitis D virus (HDV) infects the liver and causes severe inflammation. According to WHO estimates, 12 million people worldwide are infected with HDV. Currently, there are only a few treatment options. A team of researchers from TWINCORE, the Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research in Hannover, has developed a stem cell-based infection model for HDV and has used it to discover a possible target for an attack on the virus. They are now publishing their results in the scientific journal JHEP Reports<\/a>. This work was supported by RESIST, as well as by funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), which was acquired by the head of the Institute of Experimental Virology, Prof. Thomas Pietschmann.<\/p>\n

Hepatitis D virus is a so-called satellite virus. Its genetic blueprint contains only a single protein, and it uses components of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) as a shell. It therefore depends on the presence of HBV, and the hepatitis B vaccination also protects against HDV. Nevertheless, HDV is responsible for the most severe form of viral hepatitis. In addition to the previous therapy with interferon-alpha, Hepcludex has recently become available as a drug that can effectively prevent HDV from entering liver cells. However, Hepcludex has no direct antiviral effect and cannot prevent the daughter cells from also carrying the virus when infected liver cells divide. Researchers are therefore looking for new antiviral agents for combination therapy.<\/p>\n

Dr. Arnaud Carpentier, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Experimental Virology at TWINCORE, is an expert in stem cell-based infection models and has now developed one for the study of HDV infections. \u2018Our stem cell-based cell culture system is a valuable model to study viral infections,\u2019 says Dr.\u00a0 Carpentier. \u2018The cells are almost identical to primary liver cells and therefore offer more realistic conditions than the liver cell lines previously used in hepatitis research.\u2019<\/p>\n

To gain a more precise insight into the processes that occur during HDV infection, Carpentier and his team have examined gene activity in the infected cells in more detail. To do this, they used a technique known as single-cell sequencing. \u2018On the basis of the sequencing, we can divide the HDV infected cells into two groups,\u2019 says Dr. Carpentier. \u2018In some of the infected cells, the virus replicates actively, while in the other half it is unable to reproduce.\u2019 The sequencing results showed a crucial difference between the two cell populations: the expression of the gene IRF1.<\/p>\n

IRF1 stands for Interferon Regulatory Factor 1. \u2018IRF1 is a transcription factor that plays a role in cellular immune defence,\u2019 says Frauke Lange, a doctoral student in Dr. Carpentier\u2019s team, and first author of the article. \u2018In this work, we show that IRF1 overexpression inhibits HDV infection. IRF1 also prevents the spread of the virus during cell division, a step not targeted by Hepcludex.\u201d<\/p>\n

IRF1 regulates 101 downstream genes. Lange now hopes to identify the downstream genes that exert the observed antiviral effect against HDV. \u2018That’s why we want to take a closer look at the genes regulated by IRF1 in the future\u2019, she says. The current results pave the way for the development ofnew treatment of HDV infection to be used in association with Hepcludex.<\/p>\n

The photo shows<\/strong>: Dr. Arnaud Carpentier and Frauke Lange in the TWINCORE.<\/p>\n

The text is a TWINCORE press release<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers has developed a stem cell-based infection model for hepatitis D and thus discovered a potential point of attack against the virus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":38857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38832"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38859,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38832\/revisions\/38859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resist-cluster.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}