Projects
This team was created in 2000 by Vincent Lotteau and Patrice André to decipher the relationship between viral infections, metabolism and innate immunity, with a specific focus on hepatotropic viruses and liver biology. It has developed systemic approaches for studying viral infections, using in particular high-throughput protein-protein interaction assays to characterize virus-host interactomes and identify cellular pathways targeted by viruses.
The team was pioneer in the discovery and characterization of Lipo-Viro-Particles, the major form of Hepatitis C virus particles in infected patients, which reactivated the field of research on the interference between metabolism and viral infection. During the last years, the team pursued its work on hepatotropic virus interactions with cellular metabolism, in particular glycolysis and lipogenesis, and connections with innate immunity. This led to the identification of the bile acid receptor FXRa as a therapeutic target against Hepatitis B virus (HBV), for which original ligands are now developed by the start-up Enyopharma (www.enyopharma.com) that was created by Vincent Lotteau and Patrice André.
The team is now working on the discovery of mechanisms involved in the metabolic perturbations occurring during viral infections with a special focus on the understanding of virus addiction to glucose, lipogenesis and pyrimidine biosynthesis pathway. How these pathways modulate the innate immune response and the interferon system is a corner stone of our ongoing projects. Translation into clinic of strategies mimicking or inhibiting mechanisms retained during virus-host co-evolution for the control of these metabolic pathways is a major goal of our team with expected indications in infectious and metabolic human diseases. HBV, HIV and herpesviruses as well as non-infectious liver pathologies including Non-Alcoholic SteatoHepatitis (NASH) are of special interest towards this goal.
Major fundings: FRM, EU, ANRS, Sidaction, Pulsalys, Labex Ecofect, ANR, public-private partnerships.