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Hydroxyurea as an inhibitor of hepatitis C virus RNA replication

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Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the main causative agent of chronic liver disease, which may develop into liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. By using a recently developed reporter assay system in which genome-length HCV RNA replicates efficiently, we found that hydroxyurea (HU), a DNA synthesis inhibitor, inhibited HCV RNA replication. Moreover, we demonstrated that the anti-HCV activity of the combination of IFN-alpha and HU was higher than that of IFN-alpha alone. These results suggest that HU may be an effective anti-HCV reagent that can be used not only singly but also in combination with IFN-alpha to treat chronic hepatitis C.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Kazue Yoshihara and Yoshiko Kubushiro for their technical assistance. This work was supported by a grant for the 2008 Strategic Research Project (No. W20012) provided by Yokohama City University, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gastroenterological Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Akito Nozaki, Manabu Morimoto, Masaaki Kondo, Takashi Oshima, Kazushi Numata & Katsuaki Tanaka

  2. Department of Transfusion Medicine, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Akito Nozaki

  3. Department of Hematology, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Shin Fujisawa

  4. Respiratory Disease Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Takeshi Kaneko

  5. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Clinical Investigation, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Eiji Miyajima

  6. Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-57, Urafune-cho, Minami-ku, Yokohama, 232-0024, Japan

    Satoshi Morita

  7. Department of Tumor Virology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama, 700-8558, Japan

    Kyoko Mori, Masanori Ikeda & Nobuyuki Kato

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  1. Akito Nozaki
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  2. Manabu Morimoto
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  3. Masaaki Kondo
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  4. Takashi Oshima
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  5. Kazushi Numata
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  6. Shin Fujisawa
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  7. Takeshi Kaneko
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  8. Eiji Miyajima
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  9. Satoshi Morita
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  10. Kyoko Mori
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  11. Masanori Ikeda
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  12. Nobuyuki Kato
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  13. Katsuaki Tanaka
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Correspondence to Akito Nozaki.

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Nozaki, A., Morimoto, M., Kondo, M. et al. Hydroxyurea as an inhibitor of hepatitis C virus RNA replication. Arch Virol 155, 601–605 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-010-0624-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-010-0624-1

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