Gene silencing approaches for the treatment of hepatitis C virus infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a worldwide concern. Only minor portion of the ‎infected patients can clear the virus whereas the majority (more than 70%) progress to ‎advanced stages of liver deterioration which in most cases lead to liver cirrhosis and ‎cancers if remained untreated. Current standard treatment for hepatitis C is the ‎combination treatment with polyethylene glycol pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin ‎‎(PEG-IFN-α/RBV). Conventional treatment for hepatitis is reported to show variable ‎degree of success and, most recently, the combination of two or more agents has shown ‎great promise. Conventional therapy for HCV, however, is time consuming and expensive ‎and could considerably reduce the quality of life for most of the patients. Gene therapy is ‎an emerging branch of science aimed at the manipulation of genetic sequences. Gene ‎therapy has been recently introduced to virology as a novel anti-viral class of medicines. ‎The innovative idea is to target the HCV viral genome by clipping or blocking to arrest ‎the viral replication. This can be achieved by gene silencing techniques such as siRNA. ‎This will cause viral degradation by hindering the viral genome functionality pre- or post-‎translational to offer a specific and promising tool which has not been investigated ‎thoroughly. Results from using siRNA in vitro are promising, however, this area of ‎research is still evolving.‎