The Potentiality of Grape Seed Extract as a Novel Anti-hepatitis C virus Agent

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. A vaccine to prevent HCV infection has yet to be introduced and the treatment options for chronic HCV infection are limited. In this study, the effect of Grape Seed Extract (GSE) and its major constituents (Gallic acid, catechin and epicatechin) were investigated as anti- HCV by using the susceptible cell culture human hepatoma (HepG2 cell). In order to test the ability of the tested treatments to scavenge the free radicals, the Flow Cytometer assay was used on which, the scavenging HCV- induced free radical in HepG2 cell line was measured. Cytotoxicity assay was then used to determine the non-toxic concentrations to the culture cells. In order to study the inhibitory effect of GSE or its constituents, the HepG2 cells were infected with HCV and treated with GSE or one of its constituent. Inhibition of viral replication was detected by the amplification of viral RNA using the RT-PCR technique. Both the whole GSE and its constituents were considered active upon inhibiting the viral replication into HepG2 cells, as evidenced by the disappearance of the (+) and/or (-) strands of viral RNA- amplified products detected by RT-PCR (compared with the positive control). A quantitative analysis was then done by real time-qPCR on which three modes of treatments (post-, pre- and co-treatments) were carried out. The quantitative analysis by real time-qPCR revealed that, all treatments have the ability to inhibit the HCV with priority to epicatechin (76%), in addition, the potentiality to scavenge the free radicals reached up to 87.74%.