Figure 1.
Effect of ketoconazole on the anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) activity of vitamin D3. Huh7.5 cells were treated with vitamin D3 (VD) (5 µM), ketoconazole (Keto) (1 µM), or both 3 h prior to infection. Nonsignificant is denoted by ns. (A) Inhibition of HCV HJ3-5 virus production, as determined by focus-forming unit (FFU) assay of virus released into cell culture media 24 h post-infection. (B) Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of Cyp24A1 expression level in Huh7.5 treated cells. A representative of two experiments was performed in triplicates. The results are shown as the relative quantity (RQ) normalized to Gapdh mRNA values; the control cells were assigned a value of 1. Statistical significance was calculated by two-tailed Student’s t test ** p < 0.002, ns—nonsignificant.