EXPRESSION OF HEPATITIS C VIRUS ENVELOPE RELATED PROTEINS AND DETECTION OF ANTIBODIES TO PROTEINS.

丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）是日本慢性肝病的主要病原体。M.Houghtom等人报道了HCV的部分序列，并开发了抗HCV非结构蛋白和核心蛋白的检测系统。我们试图建立一个检测HCV包膜相关蛋白抗体的系统，并检验抗原的临床意义。抗体系统。我们从慢性丙型肝炎患者的血清中克隆了HCV膜相关蛋白（E2/NS1）编码基因。然后，我们将这些基因插入到trotein表达载体中，在大肠杆菌中表达E2/NS1蛋白并进行纯化。SDS凝胶电泳后，将E2蛋白转移到硝基纤维素膜上，用包括丙型肝炎在内的不同患者的血清进行western blotting。我们进一步改进了检测方法，使E2蛋白不发生强变性，从而获得了更高的抗体检出率。我们也检查了用干扰素治疗的病例，发现治疗成功后抗e2抗体下降。从这些结果来看，与其他黄病毒相比，抗e2抗体似乎不是一种有效的中和抗体，尽管该抗体可能来自HCV的免疫复合物。

hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major causative agent of ahronic liver diseases in Japan. M.Houghtom et al. reported a partial sequence of HCV and detection systems of anti-HCV nonstructural proteins and core proteins were developed. We tried to establish a system to detect antibodies to envelope related proteins of HCV and examined the clinical meanig of the antigen.antibody system.We cloned the genes coding the HCV membrace related proteins (E2/NS1) from sera of patients with chronic type C hapatitis. Then, we inserted the genes to trotein expression vector and expressed these E2/NS1 proteins in E.Coli and purified. After SDS gel electrophoresis, the E2 proteins were transferd to nitro cellulose membrane and western blotting was performed with sera from various patients including type C hepatitis. We further improved the detection method by not strongly denaturing the E2 proteins, and as a results higher detection rate of the antibody was obtained. We also examined the cases who were treated with interferon and found the anti-E2 antibody decreased after the successful reeatment. From these results, it seems anti-E2 antibody is not a efficient neutralizing antibody incontrast to other flaviviruses, although it is possible that the antibody may from immune-complex with HCV.