Inspite of the available antiviral therapy, hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a global health burden and a prophylactic vaccine would help to eliminate the risk to develop chronic liver diseases. Structural insights into the function of the glycoproteins E1 and E2 in virus entry and the interplay with the host’s humoral immune response are key for informed vaccine development. We review recently reported structural insights into receptor binding of HCV glycoproteins and the assembly of an intact membrane-bound E1–E2 heterodimer. These data are used together with available functional data to draw a simplified model of virus entry, which highlights gaps in our current knowledge that warrant further research to fully understand this process at the atomic level.

尽管有可用的抗病毒疗法，丙型肝炎病毒 (HCV) 仍然是全球健康负担，预防性疫苗将有助于消除发展为慢性肝病的风险。对糖蛋白 E1 和 E2 在病毒进入中的功能以及与宿主体液免疫反应的相互作用的结构洞察是知情疫苗开发的关键。我们回顾了最近报道的关于 HCV 糖蛋白受体结合和完整膜结合 E1-E2 异二聚体组装的结构见解。这些数据与可用的功能数据一起用于绘制病毒进入的简化模型，这突出了我们当前知识的差距，需要进一步研究以在原子水平上充分理解这一过程。