Table 1 NS5B polymerase advances and future research

Major advances

  • NS5B interacts with different host factors for viral replication [14–20] and virus morphogenesis [25].

  • NS5B represents a therapeutic target for the inhibition of viral replication [27, 35, 44].

  • NS5B is responsible for high variability of HCV [29].

  • NS5B viral genomic region is necessary for phylogenetic and phylodinamic analysis [7–9], but not enough to identify recombinant strains [31, 32, 42].

Major research questions

  • Is NS5B variability associated with prognosis of the disease in HCV infected patients? [13]

  • Is viral replication fitness influenced in HCV infected and HIV/HCV co-infected patients by NS5B variability? [34]

  • Can adaptive evolution of NS5B contribute to persistence of HCV in PBMCs? [43]