Abstract: Abstract：Objective To investigate the effects of HCV core protein（HCV-Core）on the expression of microRNAs in HepG2 cells. Methods pCDNA3.1（+）/HCV-Core eukaryotic expression plasmid was transfected into HepG2 cells. The levels of mRNA and protein expression of HCV core protein in HCV-Core transfected HepG2 cells were validated by RT-PCR，immunohistochemistry and Western blot. The differences of microRNAs expression between pCDNA3.1（+）/HCV-Core and pCDNA3.1（+）transfected HepG2 cells were analyzed by miRNA Array GeneChip(Affymetrix,USA), followed by the verification by real-time Tagman-Fluoresence quantitative RT-PCR. Results miRNA array analysis demonstrated that there were eight microRNAs altered in HepG2 cells transfected with HCV core protein, and quantitative RT-PCR confirmed that miR-29,miR-146a, miR-149, miR-192, miR-221, miR-222, miR-193b were up-regulated, while miR-196a was down-regulated. Conclusion HCV core protein could induce the up-regulation or down-regulation of some microRNAs in HepG2 cells, which may play important roles in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Key words: HCV core protein, HepG2 , MicroRNAs, miRNA Array