Old Drug May Hold The Key Against Hepatitis C

A team of US researchers say that an obsolete drug, known as 'clemizole hydrochloride’ may be effective against the liver disease 'Hepatitis C'. The team has made two new discoveries which could help in fighting against the Hepatitis C virus.

Currently, nearly 170 million people around the world are infected with hepatitis C, a blood borne virus that causes inflammation (swelling and pain) of the liver. This virus is present in the blood of an infected person and can be spread through blood-to-blood contact. Hepatitis C is a slow acting virus and for most people does not result in serious disease or death.

Nearly 83 percent of hepatitis C infections have resulted from unsafe injecting drug use. At present, there is no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C infection but treatment ( called Pegylated Interferondefine and Ribavirin) is effective for around 30 to 65% of people but that too has some serious side effects.

Virology expert and senior author of the paper, Jeffrey Glenn, MD, PhD, associate professor of gastroenterology and hepatologydefine at Stanford University said, "Hepatitis C is a big problem, because treatment requires a cocktail of drugs - like HIVdefine - but we don't have many good treatments, so we need to increase the repertoire of drug classes."

Researchers from the Stanford University discovered a protein called NS4B, which plays an important role in binding some of the genetic material, or RNA and allows the hepatitis C virus to replicate.

They also discovered old drug ‘clemizole hydrochloride’ (previously used as anti-itching medication) could slow down that protein, which in turn will decrease the virus replication tenfold with no apparent harm to infected liver like cells.

The team says that as the drug has been already used by many people and hence it is safe for human testing. Glenn added that old drug ‘clemizole hydrochloride’ could be become an essential component in a new class of multi-drug treatments for liver disease.

One of the main achievements of the scientists was the ability to use 'microfluidic technology'-- where coin sized microfluidic chips are used that reduces the tabletop biological experiments down to the tiny scale of nanoliters and hence the team of researchers was able to screen more than 1,200 drug candidates and find clemizole in just 14 days.

Glenn said, “We're excited about this and we're actively moving forward toward clinical trials."

Lead authors of the study are postdoctoral scholars Shirit Einav, MD, in medicine and Doron Gerber, PhD, in bioengineering said that NS4B protein is quite difficult to purify in huge amount while retaining the its natural properties and functionality.

But the scientists were able to make just enough of the protein to be tested. Glenn said, “We've found that if you synthesise NS4B in vitro with microsomal membranes, we provide the conditions for it to fold properly - but the problem is that this process yields only small amounts of the protein,' he says.

Adding further he said, 'We were lucky to have Stephen Quake across the hall - a world expert with a technique ideally suited to studying small amounts of protein.'

The findings of the study appear in the August 31 online version of Nature Biotechnology.