Fig 1.

HCV infection upregulates Beclin1 expression. (A) Total RNA was isolated from mock or HCV-infected IHH at different days postinfection. BCN1 mRNA expression was examined by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, and GAPDH (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) was used as an internal control. The fold changes of mRNA are presented after normalizing with internal control and was arbitrarily set as 1. The results are presented as means from three independent experiments with standard errors. (B and C) IHH were cotransfected with the reporter plasmid containing −644/+197 region of BCN1 promoter with luciferase reporter gene and plasmid DNAs containing FL-HCV or individual HCV genomic regions. Luciferase activity was measured at 48 h posttransfection. The results are representative of three independent experiments. *, P < 0.038; **, P < 0.001. (D) IHH were infected with HCV or transduced with lentivirus expressing HCV NS5A. Cell lysates were analyzed for Beclin1, HCV core, or NS5A expression by Western blotting with a specific antibody. The blot was reprobed with an antibody to actin for comparison of protein load.