word count: 230 Text Word count: 3520 Molecular Hepatitis and Hepatitis Viruses Sections, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. 2 Current address: Gastroenterology,Kanazawa University, Graduate School of Medical Science,Kanazawa,Japan Corresponding author: Dr. Suzanne U. Emerson, Molecular Hepatitis...

The relatively high variability of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope proteins E1 and E2 suggests that parts of these proteins other than the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) might be involved in the induction of virus neutralizing antibodies. To test this hypothesis, two HCV proteins, pE1 and pE2 delta, were generated by in vitro translation. They represent amino acids 174-337 of E1 and 411-688...

We compared the E2-HVR1 region in HCV-1b positive B-NHL cases from a multicenter study with sequences from studies related to lymphoproliferative disorders and B cell compartmentalisation. We found rare and unique mutations both in B-NHL isolates and in cases with lymphoproliferative disorders and lymphocyte infection. These rare mutations could have an important effect on HVR1 region and, as a...

This study determined whether selective transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) species occurred among human and chimpanzee recipients of contaminated blood products or plasma containing multiple genotypes, subgenotypes and quasispecies. Commercially prepared factor VIII concentrate (lot DO56), produced prior to HCV testing and inactivation, was subsequently found by direct cloning to contain t...

Although adenovirus (Ad) has been regarded as an excellent vaccine vector, there are 2 major drawbacks to using this platform: (a) Ad-based vaccines induce a relatively weak humoral response against encoded transgenes, and (b) preexisting immunity to Ad is highly prevalent among the general population. To overcome these obstacles, we constructed an Ad-based malaria vaccine by inserting a B cell...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been associated with development of mixed cryoglobulinemia type 2 (MC2), a lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by B cell monoclonal expansion and immunoglobulin M/k cryoprecipitable immunoglobulin production. A short sequence (codons 384-410) of the HCV E2 protein, which has the potential to promote B cell proliferation, was investigated in 2...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) evades immune responses to establish a chronic infection. These viral evasion mechanisms pose a formidable challenge to vaccine development. In this issue of HEPATOLOGY Prentoe et al. report important observations that guide the development of vaccination strategies for induction of potent cross-neutralizing antibodies. While the importance of cellular immunity for contr...

Patients with inherited bleeding disorders who received clotting factor concentrates before 1987 have high rates of hepatitis C virus (HCV) or HCV/HIV infection. We evaluated HCV quasispecies evolution in longitudinally collected specimens comparing those from patients with progression to end-stage liver disease (ESLD; cases) to those with compensated chronic hepatitis (controls). Plasma sample...

Genetic variability of hepatitis C virus (HCV) determines pathogenesis of infection, including viral persistence and resistance to treatment. The aim of the present study was to characterize HCV genetic heterogeneity within a hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of a chronically infected patient by ultradeep 454 sequencing strategy. Three independent sequencing error correction methods were applied. F...

Hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome was directly sequenced from 12 chronically infected patients who had not responded to interferon (IFN) treatment. Due to the quasispecies nature of HCV circulating genomes, serum samples from four patients showing different evolutionary characteristics were further analysed. Serial samples from each patient were taken before, s...