抗C型肝炎病毒中草藥新藥之研發

吳永昌
高雄醫學大學
C型肝炎病毒 (Hepatitis C Virus)（HCV）形成慢性肝炎、肝癌、肝硬化的主因之一。目前全球約有一億七千萬人為HCV帶原者，在台灣也有2%的人口受到感染，這些人口仍會持續增加。目前治療HCV的方法大多都採用interferon-？恁]IFN；干擾素）結合口服ribavirin一起使用，然而IFN不是對於六種病毒基因型都有良好的效果，在接受IFN治療的病患中只有25%得到了長期的改善。因此開發新藥來達到有效治療是個重要的研究方向，而一個有效而快速的篩藥系統，有利於加速新藥的開發。本研究室多年來從事於中草藥萃取物、純化合物之開發，將結合C型肝炎病毒之複製子系統及配合報導基因的檢測作為快速篩選藥物之工具，接著以建構之分析病毒重要基因標的(如IRES, NS3, polymerase)的方法，作為抗病毒藥物機轉之探討。同時配合已發表之病毒標的基因的蛋白質結構及其活性測試，作為天然藥物修飾的依據。利用上述依據做為抗HCV病毒中草藥新藥之研發策略。
關鍵字：C型肝炎病毒；複製子；藥物篩選

R & D on the anti-HCV new drugs of Chinese and Herbal Medicine

Yang-Chang Wu
Kaohsiung Medical University
Hepatisic C virus (HCV) plays an important role to chronic hepatitis, hepatoma, as well as cirrhosis of liver. The population of HCV carriers goes beyord 170 millions casusing a serious health problem worldwide. In Taiwan, 2% of the population is suffering from this terrible disease, and unfortunately the infected rate is still inceeasing rapidly. Currently available therapeutic regiments for chronic hepatitis C infection, including combination therapy with alpha interferon and ribavirin. The majority of treated patients does not achieve or maintain a response to the therapeutic regiments, however, only 25 % of patients react will, while faces to six genotypes of HCV. Therefore, the identification of new compounds with anti-HCV activity is nessential to provide solution to the therapy of HCV. Thus, an efficient assay system will be critical to the development of anti-HCV new drugs. In the past decades, we have focused on the researches of extracts and pure compounds of Chinese Herbal Medicine. We will successfully adapt the HCV sungenomic replicon system into a reporter-based system that is more amenable to highrt throughput screening.
關鍵字：Hepatitis C virus；replicon；drug screening