Current and future therapies for hepatitis C virus infection: from viral proteins to host targets

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most important problem across the world. It causes acute and chronic liver infection. Different approaches are in use to inhibit HCV infection, including small organic compounds, siRNA, shRNA and peptide inhibitors. This review article summarizes the current and future therapies for HCV infection. PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for articles published in English to give an insight into the current inhibitors against this life-threatening virus. HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitors and nucleoside/nucleotide inhibitors of NS5B polymerase are presently in the most progressive stage of clinical development, but they are linked with the development of resistance and viral breakthrough. Boceprevir and telaprevir are the two most important protease inhibitors that have been approved recently for the treatment of HCV infection. These two drugs are now the part of standard-of-care treatment (SOC). There are also many other drugs in phase III of clinical development. When exploring the various host-cell-targeting compounds, the most hopeful results have been demonstrated by cyclophilin inhibitors. The current SOC treatment of HCV infection is Peg-interferon, ribavirin and protease inhibitors (boceprevir or telaprevir). The future treatment of this life-threatening disease must involve combinations of therapies hitting multiple targets of HCV and host factors. It is strongly expected that the near future, treatment of HCV infection will be a combination of direct-acting agents (DAA) without the involvement of interferon to eliminate its side effects.