The differences in gene expression profile induced by genotype 1b hepatitis C virus core isolated from liver tumor and adjacent non-tumoral tissue

Background: core protein of the hepatitis c virus (hcv) has an important role in hcv self-replication, pathogenesis and carcinogenesis. objectives: to identify the effect of core proteins from different quasispecies of hcv genotype 1b expressed in a hepg2 cell line on human gene expression profiles. materials and methods: core protein eukrocytic expression plasmids (pegfp-n1) containing different quasispecie core protein genes of genotypes 1b hcv derived from of hcv-related hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) tumoral tissue (t) and non-tumoral tissue (nt) were constructed and then transfected to hepg2 cell line. the gene expression spectrum in the cell expression core proteins from t and nt were compared with those in the control by affymetrix human genome hg-u 133 plus 2.0 microarray. results: different gene expression profiles were acquired between hepg2 expressing core proteins derived from t and nt tissues. both core proteins caused the modulation of several genes that are up/down-regulated as compared to control, including genes involved in oncogenesis, signal transduction, cell apoptosis, and cell growth cycle regulation. surprisingly, only one gene—csnk1a1—was up-regulated by both t and nt core variants. conclusions: core proteins isolated from tumoral or non-tumoral nodules mediate expression of different cellular genes suggesting that variants isolated from different quasispecies may have different biological effects.