NS2-3 protease

NS2-3 protease (of hepatitis C virus, HCV) is an enzyme responsible for proteolytic cleavage between NS2 and NS3, which are non-structural proteins that form part of the HCV virus particle. NS3 protease of hepatitis C virus, on the other hand, is responsible for the cleavage of non-structural protein downstream. Both of these proteases are directly involved in HCV genome replication, that is, during the viral life-cycle that leads to virus multiplication in the host that has been infected by the virus. NS2-3 protease (of hepatitis C virus, HCV) is an enzyme responsible for proteolytic cleavage between NS2 and NS3, which are non-structural proteins that form part of the HCV virus particle. NS3 protease of hepatitis C virus, on the other hand, is responsible for the cleavage of non-structural protein downstream. Both of these proteases are directly involved in HCV genome replication, that is, during the viral life-cycle that leads to virus multiplication in the host that has been infected by the virus. Hepatitis C affects 170 million people around the world which includes 1.4 million people living in the U.S. Most of the people infected with this virus live in third-world countries which often tend to have poor sterilization of medical equipment, a common source of HCV infection. Education also plays a big part as a vast majority of people don’t have access to the information about the virus, how it spreads and infects11. Hepatitis C can enter human body through many ways which include sexual intercourse, blood transfusion and via HCV infected needles. HCV infection can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer if interferon treatment fails. Hepatitis C virus is a single-stranded RNA virus in the Flaviviridae family. The genome consists made up of about 10,000 nucleotides and encodes a single polyprotein. Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) used host cell machinery to process its genome to synthesize 3 crucial viral proteases of which each has peptide cleaving role. These 3 proteases are also known as structural proteins. The HCV genome encodes 10 viral proteins: C, E1, E2, p7, NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A and NS5B. NS2-3 protease is the enzyme responsible for proteolytic cleavage between the non-structural proteins NS2 and NS3. NS3 protease, on the other hand, is responsible for the cleavage of non-structural proteins downstream. Both of these proteases are directly involved in HCV genome replication. NS2-3 protease mechanism is essential for viral production, as shown by in-vitro chimpanzee studies where chimps which were inoculated with HCV with fully mutated NS2-3 protease activity didn’t develop HCV infection.