Screening of protease inhibitors resistance mutations in hepatitis c virus isolates infecting romanian patients unexposed to triple therapy.

SCREENING OF PROTEASE INHIBITORS RESISTANCE MUTATIONS IN HEPATITIS C VIRUS ISOLATES INFECTING ROMANIAN PATIENTS UNEXPOSED TO TRIPLE THERAPY. Roum Arch Microbiol Immunol. 2015 Jan-Jun;74(1-2):7-17 Authors: Dinu S, Calistru PI, Ceauşu E, Târdeil G, Oprişan G Abstract Although the European recommendations include the use of new antiviral drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C, in Romania the current treatment remains interferon plus ribavirin. First generation viral protease inhibitors (i.e. boceprevir, telaprevir), which have raised the chances of obtaining viral clearance in up to 70% of infection cases produced by genotype 1 isolates, have not been introduced yet as standard treatment in our country. The success of these new antivirals is limited by the occurrence and selection of resistance mutations during therapy. We set-up a molecular study aiming to detect any resistance mutations to boceprevir and telaprevir harbored by hepatitis C isolates infecting Romanian patients naïve to viral protease inhibitors. Since these new antivirals are efficient and approved for genotype 1 infection, viral samples were genotyped following a protocol previously developed by our research group. We analyzed by both population sequencing and molecular cloning and sequencing the NS3 protease region of hepatitis C virus isolates infecting patients which were not previously exposed to boceprevir and telaprevir. All the analyzed samples were subtype ...
Source: Roumanian Archives of Microbiology and Immunology - Category: Microbiology Tags: Roum Arch Microbiol Immunol Source Type: research