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Antiviral Screening Assays Based on HCV Replicons
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Email: MILTON@APATH.COM
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Identification of a well-defined and
robust cell-culture system for hepatitis C virus (HCV) is critical for
facilitating efforts to identify antivirals against HCV. Apath, LLC proposes to
develop a series of cell-based assays for testing and screening of compounds
with antiviral activity against hepatitis C virus (HCV). These assays will be
based on cell lines which contain a constituitively replicating subgenomic HCV
replicon. None of the published HCV cell-culture replication systems are
sufficiently robust to be used effectively in an antiviral screening assay.
Recently, Lohmann et al. described a subgenomic HCV replicon constructed from
genotype lb RNA and they isolated Huh7 cell lines which contain this
autonomously replicating replicon. Cell lines containing a similar HCV replicon
have been made in the laboratory of Charles M. Rice and licensed exclusively to
Apath. The cells have been analyzed extensively and have been demonstrated to
contain an HCV replicon which exhibits autonomous HCV RNA replication. We
propose to maximize the usefulness of these cell lines as drug-discovery tools
by formatting assays for compound screening and by modifying the replicon to
make the system more amenable to high throughput screening. This system
represents the best available system for identifying and testing inhibitors of
HCV and thus could be an essential tool for the discovery of new drugs.
PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION:
Apath, LLC proposes to develop a series of cell-based assays for testing and screening of
compounds with antiviral activity against hepatitis C virus (HCV). Such are assays critical
for evaluating lead compounds with biochemically identified activity against HCV and also
to assist in efforts to identify new antivirals for treatment of HCV infections.
* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *