BMC Gastroenterology: More evidence that Hepatitis C resistance is linked to insulin resistance

Now online at Biomedcentral.com, a provisional article  (available in PDF version) to be published in BMC Gastroenterology, entitled "Hepatitis C virus E2 protein involved in insulin resistance through an impairment of Akt/PKB and GSK3beta signaling in hepatocytes".  This study is only part of a growing body of evidence supporting that the Hepatitis C virus is indeed associated with Type II diabetes through a variety of possible physiological mechanisms, most of which I willingly admit I don't understand.  If someone is willing to sit down and teach me this stuff as if I were a kindergartner, I would gladly accept. 



Hepatitis C virus E2 protein involve in insulin resistance through an impairment of Akt/PKB and GSK3beta signaling in hepatocytes
Ming-Ju Hsieh, Kuang-Ping Lan, Hao-Yu Liu, Xiao-Zong Zhang, Yaw-Feng Lin, Tzy-Yen Chen and Hui-Ling Chiou

BMC Gastroenterology 2012, 12:74 doi:10.1186/1471-230X-12-74

Published: 21 June 2012

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may cause liver diseases of various severities ranging from primary acute infection to life-threatening diseases, such as cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma with poor prognosis. According to clinical findings, HCV infection may also lead to some extra-hepatic symptoms, including type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Since insulin resistance is the major etiology for type 2 DM and numerous evidences showed that HCV infection associated with insulin resistance, the involvement of E2 in the pathogenesis of type 2 DM and underlying mechanisms were investigated in this study.

Results

Results showed that E2 influenced on protein levels of insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) and impaired insulin-induced Ser308 phosphorylation of Akt/PKB and Ser9 phosphorylation of GSK3beta in Huh7 cells, leading to an inhibition of glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis, respectively, and eventually insulin resistance.

Conclusions

Therefore, HCV E2 protein indeed involved in the pathogenesis of type 2 DM by inducing insulin resistance.

Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests

Authors' Contributions:

Ming-Ju Hsieh has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study and drafted the manuscript.

Kuang-Ping Lan, Hao-Yu Liu, Xiao-Zong Zhang and Yaw-Feng Lin have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.

Shun-Fa Yang and Hui-Ling Chiou conceived of the study, and participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript.

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.