| Summary: | <p>The work described in this thesis investigates the lipid metabolism of human hepatocytes in the context of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection. This includes lipoprotein signalling and cholesterol metabolism targeted analysis of gene expression as well as the influence of polyunsaturated ER targeting liposomes (PERLs) on infection.</p> <p>These analyses indicate that HCV suppresses the expression of key regulators throughout the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway. This effect was quantified and the influence of liposome treatment evaluated. The latter resulted in the formulation of the hypothesis that PERL treatment interfers with virus-induced abberations of the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway and normalises the expression of four genes directly involved in cholesterol regulation. In addition, the lipidome of isolated lipid droplet was analysed by mass spectrometry. These data, combined with microscopy data suggest that PERLs interfere with S-palmitoylation of the HCV core protein resulting in dissociation of core from lipid droplets. This is likely to interrupt the viral assembly process, leading to inhibition of the production of infectious viral particles.</p> <p>Further described here are two different yet unsuccessful approaches to fluorescently label HCV RNA for live cell microscopy studies, namely an MS2 coat protein mediated approach, and Alexa®UTP labelling.</p>
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