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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 21, 2018; 24(47): 5297-5311
Published online Dec 21, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i47.5297
Hepatitis C: From inflammatory pathogenesis to anti-inflammatory/hepatoprotective therapy
Hu Li, Meng-Hao Huang, Jian-Dong Jiang, Zong-Gen Peng
Hu Li, Jian-Dong Jiang, Zong-Gen Peng, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100050, China
Meng-Hao Huang, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, United States
Jian-Dong Jiang, Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100050, China
Author contributions: All the authors contributed to the search and analysis of the literature and to the writing of the paper.
Supported by CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences, No. 2017-I2M-3-012; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81773788 and 81621064; and National Mega-Project for “R&D for Innovative Drugs”, Ministry of Science and Technology, China, No. 2018ZX09711001-003-010.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author to: Zong-Gen Peng, PhD, Professor, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 1, Tiantan Xili, Beijing 100050, China. pengzonggen@imb.pumc.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-10-63166129 Fax: +86-10-63017302
Received: October 19, 2018
Peer-review started: October 19, 2018
First decision: November 22, 2018
Revised: November 27, 2018
Accepted: November 30, 2018
Article in press: November 30, 2018
Published online: December 21, 2018
Processing time: 63 Days and 7.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Inflammatory responses triggered by hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection lead to severe progressive liver diseases. Some inflammatory cytokines and chemokines may serve as biomarkers for the disease progression and therapeutic effect in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients. The inflammatory pathogenesis in HCV-infected patients is complicated, including classic pathogen pattern recognition, inflammasome activation, intrahepatic inflammatory cascade response, and oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress. Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are not sufficient to block the uncontrolled inflammation and disease progression in severe CHC patients. Therefore, coupling with anti-inflammatory/hepatoprotective agents with anti-HCV effects is a promising therapeutic regimen for advanced HCV-infected patients during or after treatment with DAAs.