The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a frequent cause of chronic liver disease. A mechanism proposed as being responsible for virus persistence is evasion of the host immune response through a high mutation rate in crucial regions of the viral genome. We have sequenced the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of the virus isolated from three serum samples, collected during 18 months of follow-up, from an as...

Hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) sequences of 96 clones at six time-points representing 27 variants in two major and one minor group were identified in a patient with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection over 3 years. Major and selected minor variants were used to design synthetic peptides corresponding to the HVR1 C terminus. Peptide ELISA reactivity with IgG was plotted against the correspo...

The hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of hepatitis C virus (HCV) E2 envelope glycoprotein is a 27-amino-acid sequence located at its N terminus. In this study, we investigated the functional role of HVR1 for interaction with the mammalian cell surface. The C-terminal truncated E2 glycoprotein was appended to a transmembrane domain and cytoplasmic tail of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) G protein f...

Six donor-recipient clusters of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected individuals were studied. For five clusters the period of infection of the donor could be estimated, and for all six clusters the time of infection of the recipients from the donor via blood transfusion was also precisely known. Detailed phylogenetic analyses were carried out to investigate the genomic evolution of the viral quasi...

UNLABELLED In our study, we characterized the effect of monensin, an ionophore that is known to raise the intracellular pH, on the hepatitis C virus (HCV) life cycle. We showed that monensin inhibits HCV entry in a pangenotypic and dose-dependent manner. Monensin induces an alkalization of intracellular organelles, leading to an inhibition of the fusion step between viral and cellular membranes...

An approach for determination of hepatitis C virus (HCV) quasispecies by end-point limiting-dilution real-time PCR (EPLD-PCR) is described. It involves isolation of individual coexisting sequence variants of the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of the HCV genome from serum specimens using a limiting-dilution protocol. EPLD-PCR applied to an HCV outbreak study provided insights into the epidemiolog...

The three variable regions of hepatitis C virus (HCV) glycoprotein E2 can be removed simultaneously from the E2 ectodomain (residues 384-661) without affecting folding or CD81 binding. In this study, we show that deletion of hypervariable region (HVR) 2 or the intergenotypic variable region (igVR) in the context of the E1E2 polyprotein eliminates formation of heterodimers, reduces CD81 binding ...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major etiologic agent of blood transfusion–associated and sporadic nonA non-B hepatitis affecting more than 180 million worldwide. Vaccine development for HCV has been difficult and there is no vaccine or effective therapy against this virus. In this paper, we describe the development of an experimental plant-derived subunit vaccine against HCV. Our subunit vaccin...

OBJECTIVE HCV is a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide, but the role of neutralising antibodies (nAbs) in its natural history remains poorly defined. We analysed the in vivo role of hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) for HCV virion properties, including nAb susceptibility. DESIGN Analysis of HCV from human liver chimeric mice infected with cell-culture-derived prototype genotype 2a reco...