丙型肝炎 z-bo 2020-10-15 368

　　On the evening of October 5, 2020, three scientists who discovered and identified hepatitis C virus (HCV) and established an animal model of HCV infection were awarded the 111th Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

　　Like most Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, their work is based on animal experiments. In addition, this is the 99th time that it has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for animal experiments and related research. It can be said that without animal experiments, there would be no Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

　　The laboratory animal used by this physiology or medicine prize winner is our human cousin, the chimpanzee.

　　A study conducted by Ort and his research team in the 1970s showed that approximately 30% of post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not caused by the known hepatitis A and B at the time. This is called hepatitis. I called "Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis". They also used chimpanzee infection and transmission experiments to speculate that this "non-A, non-B hepatitis" pathogen may be a new virus. Ten years later, Horton of Chiron Corporation and his team finally identified the "non-A, non-B hepatitis" virus and officially named it HCV. In the 1990s, the American virologist Rice began to use chimpanzees to study HCV amplification and biological characteristics, and finally realized the large-scale replication of HCV in chimpanzees and established effective animals for HCV research. Made the model. Because the host range infected by HCV is very narrow, chimpanzees are known to be a rare species that can infect HCV in addition to humans. Therefore, in vivo studies of HCV have long been limited to chimpanzees. .. In fact, the HCV viral genome was first cloned from a chimpanzee experimentally infected with "non-A, non-B hepatitis". After HCV is infected by chimpanzees, the level of replication is very high, which can quickly cause viremia and develop into a long-term human-like infection, which is a variety of biological characteristics of human HCV infection. Process and phenotype can be replicated. Therefore, the chimpanzee is the best animal model for the development and evaluation of HCV and vaccines, and can provide the most effective preclinical evaluation data. However, from a practical point of view, chimpanzees are not only expensive and limited in number, but also from the ethical point of view of animal experiments, using them in experiments has the greatest moral impact. According to the ethics of animal experiments, the National Institutes of Health of the US Department of Health and Welfare has terminated support for invasive research on chimpanzees.

　　Like the currently circulating new coronavirus (COVID-19), HCV is also a global health threat. The number of infections is increasing each year, with an estimated 1.75 million chronic HCV infections each year. It is new. Globally, more than 70 million people suffer from liver fibrosis, compensated liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma due to chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Antiviral drugs that directly act on HCV significantly increase the cure rate of HCV infected patients, but due to the high cost of treatment, not everyone can use it, especially low-income HCV infected patients. As a result, nearly 400,000 people die from HCV infection every year. In addition, the emergence of potentially drug-resistant virus variants caused by long-term medication will also be another unfavorable factor for effective control of HCV infection. The best way to control the spread of the virus is to develop a safe and effective vaccine. Unfortunately, HCV has been discovered for more than 30 years, but there is no vaccine against this virus. Among them, there is no suitable experimental animal model for HCV biology and virus-host interaction. This is mainly because the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine are evaluated.

　　The World Health Organization has set a goal to eliminate HCV infection by 2030. However, the lack of an effective vaccine not only leads to the spread of HCV infection, but also makes the complete eradication of HCV infection an impossible task. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to scientists who study and identify HCV. This can remind the world: animal models are essential for long-term resistance to viruses. "