GB Virus C/Hepatitis G Virus (GBV-C/HGV): still looking for a disease

GB virus-C (hepatitis G virus) nostalgia.

The newly discovered human flavivirus identified as GB virus-C [1] and hepatitis G virus (HGV) [2], presents intriguing challenges in virology, epidemiology, and blood banking. Its clinical relevance for hepatology, however, appears to have been short-lived. Murthy and colleagues in this issue of Kidney International [3] provide additional evidence that the virus is not associated with clinical...

GB virus C/hepatitis G virus infection in southern China.

The prevalence of GB virus C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV) infection among intravenous drug users (IVDUs), patients with liver diseases, and blood donors in Nanning, southern China was studied. GBV-C/HGV RNA was detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction with primers derived from the 5'-untranslated region. GBV-C/HGV RNA was detected in 64 of 85 IVDUs, 20 of 80 persons with liv...

Homologous recombination in GB virus C/hepatitis G virus.

Analysis of 33 GB virus C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV) full or nearly full genome sequences revealed several putative inter- and intrasubtype recombinants. The breakpoints of the recombinant regions were mapped using a maximum-likelihood method, and the statistical significance for each region was tested using Monte Carlo simulation. The results were highly significant and provided evidence fo...

Phylogenetic analysis of GBV-C/hepatitis G virus.

Comparison of 33 epidemiologically distinct GBV-C/hepatitis G virus complete genome sequences suggests the existence of four major phylogenetic groupings that are equally divergent from the chimpanzee isolate GBV-C(tro) and have distinct geographical distributions. These four groupings are not consistently reproduced by analysis of the virus 5'-noncoding region (5'-NCR), or of individual genes ...

GB virus C/hepatitis G virus--its role in human disease redefined?