Hepatitis C, whose causal agent is called Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), is a global health burden with about 170 million people infected. Currently, no vaccine exists again HCV and treatments are effective for only a part of infected people. Therefore, new treatments are urgently needed, as well as a better understanding of the viral life cycle.To do so, we studied the entry process of HCV in its targets cells through the characterisation of HCV entry inhibitors. Firstly, we have shown that EWI-2wint, a natural inhibitor of HCV entry, blocks this process by changing the partitionning of CD81, one of the HCV receptors. In addition, we have studied the effect of monensin on HCV infection and found that this pharmacological inhibitor impairs a late step of HCV entry.Altogether, our results allow a better understading of the HCV entry process and open the way to the development of new therapeutic agents.
