title: Hepatitis C virus life cycle and lipid metabolism.
abstract: Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infects over 150 million people worldwide. In most cases HCV infection becomes chronic, causing liver disease ranging from fibrosis to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV affects the cholesterol homeostasis and at the molecular level, every step of the virus life cycle is intimately connected to lipid metabolism. In this review, we present an update on the lipids and apolipoproteins that are involved in the HCV infectious cycle steps: entry, replication and assembly. Moreover, the result of the assembly process is a lipoviroparticle, which represents a peculiarity of hepatitis C virion. This review illustrates an example of an intricate virus-host interaction governed by lipid metabolism.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy, Splaiul Independentei 296, 060031 Bucharest 17, Romania. pop@biochim.ro.
authors.forename: Costin-Ioan
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Popescu
authors.affiliation: Center for Infection & Immunity of Lille (CIIL), Inserm U1019, CNRS UMR8204, Institut Pasteur de Lille and Université de Lille, F-59000 Lille, France. laura.riva@ibl.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Riva
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry of the Romanian Academy, Splaiul Independentei 296, 060031 Bucharest 17, Romania. vlaicu.ovidiu@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Ovidiu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Vlaicu
authors.affiliation: Center for Infection & Immunity of Lille (CIIL), Inserm U1019, CNRS UMR8204, Institut Pasteur de Lille and Université de Lille, F-59000 Lille, France. rayan.farhat@ibl.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: Rayan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Farhat
authors.affiliation: Center for Infection & Immunity of Lille (CIIL), Inserm U1019, CNRS UMR8204, Institut Pasteur de Lille and Université de Lille, F-59000 Lille, France. yves.rouille@ibl.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: Yves
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Rouillé
authors.affiliation: Center for Infection & Immunity of Lille (CIIL), Inserm U1019, CNRS UMR8204, Institut Pasteur de Lille and Université de Lille, F-59000 Lille, France. jean.dubuisson@ibl.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dubuisson