Nanoparticles in diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis C infection: a review article

Hepatitis C infection is one of the major health problems of the world. Two-third of the world population (about 170 million) are infected with hepatitis C infection and every year spend a lot of cost in diagnosis and treatment of this infection. Hepatitis C virus is an enveloped, single-stranded RNA virus with positive polarity and is a member of Flaviviridae family and its genomic length is 9.6 kb. Hepatitis C virus has tendency to develop chronic infections (70 – 80 percent of cases) that in the end stages may lead to cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. Due to high heterogeneity in genome of these viruses, an effective vaccine to prevent hepatitis C infection hasn’t been developed. For many years the main treatment for hepatitis C infection was a combination of pegylated INF-α and ribavirin , but its use has been limited because of numerous side effects of the drug and also viral resistance. Nanoparticles are used in diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis C infection commonly because of their effective drug delivery to the tissue. These nanoparticles are separated into two groups, organic and non- organic nanoparticles and they can effectively treat or prevent the progression of the disease with their direct or indirect effects. Most organic nanoparticles used for this purpose are lipid nanoparticles and the most non-organic nanoparticles are magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4 and γ- Fe2O3), gold and copper. The purpose of this paper is to review the nanoparticles in diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis C infection.