七層塔萃取物抑制C型肝炎病毒複製之能力探討

C 型肝炎病毒(Hepatitis C virus, HCV)屬於黃熱病毒科肝炎病毒屬，是ㄧ個具有單股正向RNA 基因體的病毒。HCV 感染會引起急性或慢性肝炎，更嚴重的會演變成肝硬化或肝癌。HCV 的基因體可以轉譯一條大約3000 個胺基酸的多蛋白，再藉由細胞產生的蛋白水解酶或是病毒本身製造的蛋白水解切割為10 個具功能的病毒蛋白。目前用於治療HCV感染的主要方法是單獨處理干擾素(IFN)或是長效型干擾素(PEG-IFN)結合抗病毒藥物Ribavirin進行治療，但是治療過程會產生強烈的副作用，因此尋找新的治療方法，是一個重要的研究方向。本篇研究主要想探討Ocmum gratissimum L.粗萃取物是否能取代或降低IFN使用劑量且能有效的抑制病毒複製。Semi-quantitative PCR和Western blot的實驗結果顯示，Ocmum gratissimum L.粗萃取物單獨處理細胞24小時後皆無法有效的抑制C型肝炎病毒的複製，另外Ocmum gratissimum L.粗萃取物合併低劑量的IFN處理細胞，也無法有效的抑制C型肝炎病毒複製；因此，根據本實驗結果，我們初步證實Ocmum gratissimum L.粗萃取物不具有抑制C型肝炎病毒複製的能力。

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) belongs to the Hepacvirus genus in Flaviviridae family and is a single positive-stranded RNA virus that causes acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV genome encodes a polyprotein of about 3,000 amino acids, which can be processed into 10 mature viral proteins by cellular or viral proteases. The current treatment strategy for HCV is using Interferon (INF) combined with ribavirin. However, strong side effects are expected during treating processes.Therefore, developing a new treatment or axially treatment become an important research. This study aims to investigate whether Ocmum gratissimum L. can replace or reduce required dose of INF for an effective inhibition of virus replication. By semi-quantitative PCR and western blot experiments, it was show that a 24 hours treatment of Ocmum gratissimumL. Ocmum gratissimum L. failed to effectively inhibit the replication of Hepatitis C virus. Beside, Ocmum gratissimum L. has no effect in improving the antiviral activity of INF. Thus, according to the experimental results, we have initially proved that Ocmum gratissimum L. is unable to inhibit the replication of Hepatitis C virus.