The interactions of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) with the immune system are numerous. As one of the many results, a considerable number of autoantibodies occur in serum. This chapter describes methods to detect anti-GOR antibodies (1–3). Anti-GOR are autoantibodies that are specifically ass ...
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) became established as invaluable models for the study of human viral hepatitis after it was discovered, in 1967, that the chronic hepatitis B antigen carrier state existed in a naturally infected member of this species (1–3). They were instrumental in the devel ...
HCVs constitute a genus within the Flaviviridae, with closest homology to the hepatitis G and GB viruses, and Pestiviruses. The positive-stranded RNA genome encodes at least nine proteins. Core, El, and E2 constitute the structural proteins; NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B are nonstructur ...
Hepatitis C virus-associated end-stage liver disease is a leading diagnosis in patients undergoing liver transplantation, accounting for approx 25% of patients transplanted at major medical centers in the United States, and for 5–15% of those transplanted worldwide (1). Although HCV ...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) possesses a single-stranded, positive-sense RNA that is 9.4 kb in length. The complete HCV genome has been cloned and sequenced and encodes for a nucleocapsid, an envelope, and five nonstructural proteins (1,2). The 5′ untranslated region of the virus is highly conserved am ...
Clinical diagnosis of HCV infection is generally accomplished by using immunoserological assays to detect the presence of anti-HCV antibodies. Such immunoserological assays have been approved for blood donor screening, thereby reducing the incidence of post-transfusion he ...
In the field of biological science, the development of new techniques (e.g., Southern blotting, molecular cloning, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) often led to better understanding of fundamental and applied biological problems. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is among the t ...
The diagnosis and monitoring of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection have been aided by the development of HCV RNA quantification assays A direct measure of viral load, HCV RNA quantification has the advantage of providing information on viral kinetics and provides unique insight into the dise ...
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has revolutionized both the basic and the applied aspects of the biomedical field with more than 40,000 papers having been published employing this technique. PCR has become an indispensable tool for basic research applications, such as cloning (1), seq ...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA has been detected in the sera and liver sections of patients with chronic HCV infection using RT-PCR and other sensitive molecular techniques. Since archived formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tissues from these patients are readily available for retrospe ...
With this statement, Sherlock and Dooley have described two of the three major challenges involved in quantitatively measuring any analyte in tissue samples: the distribution of the analyte in the tissue; and the standard of reference, or denominator, with which to make comparisons betwe ...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV), the etiological agent responsible for the majority of cases of parenterally acquired liver disease, is found throughout the world. HCV is an enveloped virus with a small, single-stranded RNA genome. Because it uses an error-prone, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, HCV h ...
Non-A, non-B hepatitis was recognized as a frequent consequence of blood transfusion for many years before the agent responsible, hepatitis C virus (HCV), was first cloned and sequenced in 1989 Very quickly it became apparent that viruses from different parts of the world were distinct, and aft ...
The recent development of high-power personal computer hardware and software has allowed investigators to prepare phylogenetic trees without understanding of the fundamental principles of molecular evolution. Unfortunately, inexperienced investigators are also pr ...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was identified as a major causative agent of non-A, non-B hepatitis (1). Numerous complete or partial nucleotide sequences of HCV isolates have been reported worldwide, and comparison of these sequences revealed their marked genetic heterogeneity nature, sugge ...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV), a flavi-like virus with a positive-sense, single-stranded genome RNA (1–3), shows considerable variation in nucleotide sequences. These variations fall into a series of specific patterns and are the basis for classification of HCV into different types and genoty ...
Several different methods have been developed for the typing of HCV variants: direct sequence analysis, slot-blot hybridization analysis of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) products using cDNA probes specific to each HCV genotype and PCR amplificati ...
Hepatitis C viruses (HCVs) constitute a highly variable genus within the Flaviviridae, with closest homology to the hepatitis G and GB viruses, and Pestiviruses. The positive-stranded RNA genome encodes a polyprotein which is co- and posttranslationally cleaved into at least nine prot ...
The RNA genome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) displays extensive sequence variation, and consequently, the virus is classified into six major genotypes. The severity of disease and response to antiviral treatment are thought to be influenced by both viral and host-related factors, including a ...
Most RNA viruses exists as a heterogeneous mixture of closely related viral genome in the host, which is the result of high error rates in RNA replication and selected by various viral and host factors. The spectrum of this spectrum of related genomes within a host is referred as quasispecies (1). This im ...