Humoral Responses Against HCV

Dear Colleagues,

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of chronic liver disease world-wide. With 180 million persistently infected people chronic hepatitis C infection represents a major public health problem of high socio-economic impact. Treatment options for chronic hepatitis C are limited and a vaccine for prevention against HCV infection is not available. The investigation of the humoral response against HCV and therefore the development of potent B cell immunogens, that have greatly suffered from the paucity of HCV in vitro infection assays, is essential. Owing to recent essential progresses in the field,  the current limitations in vaccine development should be overcome by addressing the improvement of B cell responses. This should be achieved by a thorough investigation: i) of mechanisms of neutralization or escape from neutralizing antibodies, ii) of influence of serum factors - e.g., lipoproteins - that can modulate and/or counteract both cell entry and neutralization and iii) of cell entry steps that can potentially be targeted by antibodies, including those that are not raised naturally. Identifying successful immune responses against HCV and those naturally occurring in individuals spontaneously clearing infection might guide efforts to elicit such immune responses by appropriate vaccination and to produce effective neutralizing antibodies for passive immunization.

Dr. François-Loïc Cosset
Guest Editor

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• hepatitis C virus
• neutralizing antibody
• immune correlates
• therapy
• monoclonals
• viral cell entry
• antivirals and viral escape
• vaccines