Stimulation of Huh7.5 cells with the NRG1 homologue Heregulin 1β enhances the abundance of viral transcript (Fig 6) while treatment with an antibody that neutralizes NRG1 prior to infection with the HCVcc strain JC1 (Fig 7A) inhibits establishment of infection (Fig 7B) and production of infectious particels from cell culture as suggested from supernatant transfer experiments one or two weeks after infection (Fig 7C and 7D). Here, NRG1 is linked to infection.