Fig 3.

IFNα inhibits cell-free and cell-to-cell HCV transmission. HCV (SA13/JFH)-infected Huh-7.5 cells were treated with IFNα (1,000 IU/mL) for 1 hour, washed thoroughly to remove IFNα, labeled with CMFDA, and cocultured with naïve Huh-7.5 cells. One hour post-coculture anti-HCV Ig was added to neutralize extracellular virus and at indicated timepoints anti-CD81 was added to block all subsequent transmission events. Twenty-four hours post-coculture the levels of the infectious virus in the extracellular media were measured (A) and de novo infection events determined by flow cytometry (B). The results represent the mean and standard deviation of three experiments, and significance calculated using Student t tests (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.005) comparing treated sample to untreated controls. To assess whether IFNα induced any viral protein degradation during this time period, CMFDA-labeled infected cells were stained for HCV Core or NS5A (C) and the data presented as mean fluorescent intensity (MFI).