Cholesterol-lowering drugs protect against hepatitis C
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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The hepatitis C virus penetrates the cell with the help of a cholesterol receptor; It turned out that to suppress the work of this receptor, ezetimibe, which has long been used as a regulator of cholesterol metabolism, is suitable.
The fact that cholesterol somehow helps the hepatitis C virus to penetrate into cells, scientists have known for a long time. But what exactly this assistance is shown remains a mystery. And a group of researchers from the University of Illinois in Chicago (USA) reported that she managed to determine the "gateway" through which the virus enters the cage, and this gate was the cholesterol receptor NPC1L1. It helps maintain the cholesterol balance in the cell, and as it turned out, it also opens the way to a deadly virus.
NPC1L1 is present in many animal species in the tissues of the digestive tract, in the liver it is found only in humans and chimpanzees - the only animal susceptible to hepatitis C. The researchers showed that suppressing the work of this receptor prevents infection by the virus. The result was confirmed both in experiments on cell culture and on the animal model. However, as the last researchers used not a chimpanzee, but a mouse, which transplanted a fragment of the human liver. The hepatitis virus infected the human liver inside the mouse, but did not touch it if the animal received NPC1L1 receptor blockers.
Moreover, it was found that hepatitis C is able to overcome the long-known ezetimibe formulation that is used for lowering cholesterol. Its action is based just on blocking the work of NPC1L1. By itself, this receptor is well studied precisely in connection with the issues of cholesterol metabolism; another thing is that it has not occurred to anyone to connect it with hepatitis. Unlike existing antiviral drugs, ezetimibe effectively prevented the infection of cells with all six varieties of the hepatitis C virus.
The scientists presented their results in the journal Nature Medicine.
This drug will not help in the late stages of the disease, when the only way left is to transplant the liver. However, after a transplant, it often happens that the virus also penetrates into a healthy liver. Ezetimibe could be a much more effective means of protecting the transplanted liver than existing drugs, especially if one considers that a person after transplanting takes immunosuppressors, and therefore his body is greatly weakened.
As for chronic forms of hepatitis, for them, scientists believe, it is necessary to create a drug cocktail, similar to what is currently used for AIDS therapy : in such a mixture, ezetimibe could significantly increase the effectiveness of other antiviral agents.
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