病毒學家開發了一種技術，能夠培養維持丙型肝炎病毒(HCV)，這就能夠促進研發疫苗對抗這種病原的研究。

華盛頓大學醫學院(Seattle, USA)的科研人員使用了一種新的人胎肝細胞培養系統。培養的肝細胞能夠支持HCV生長，既能夠被來自感染患者血液中的病毒感染，也能夠被全長體外轉錄的1a基因型HCV RNA轉染。

在感染或者轉染之后，來自這些細胞培養液能夠感染非感染肝細胞，從而證實了有活性病毒顆粒的生成。使用電子顯微鏡檢測這些培養得到的病毒顆粒，發現這些病毒具有預期的大小和HCV病毒顆粒的形狀。

這項研究發表在2007年2月出版的《美國病理學期刊》之上。
 
Cultured Fetal Hepatocytes Maintain Growth of Hepatitis C Virus
 
Virologists have developed a technique for maintaining the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in culture, which should promote research seeking to produce a vaccine against this dangerous pathogen.

Investigators at the University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle, USA) employed a novel human fetal hepatocyte culture system. The cultured hepatocytes could support growth of HCV either by being infected with viruses taken from the blood of an infected individual or by being transfected with full-length in vitro-transcribed genotype 1a HCV RNA.

After infection or transfection, the production of active virus particles was demonstrated by the ability of media from these cells to infect naive hepatocytes. Virus particles obtained from the cultures were examined by electron microscopy and shown to possess the expected size and shape of HCV virus particles.

The study was published in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Pathology.