MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF HEPATITIS C VIRUS

丙型肝炎病毒(丙型肝炎病毒)似乎是目前的主要病原体 与输血相关的非甲非乙型肝炎。丙型肝炎病毒基因组是一个 线形正链RNA分子，约9,500个核苷酸 编码约3,000个氨基酸的多蛋白。几个伸展动作 与丙型肝炎病毒多蛋白中的氨基酸有很大的相似性 黄病毒和鼠疫病毒蛋白。因此，丙型肝炎病毒被认为是 与这些病毒群有远亲关系。这个项目的目标是 增加我们对这一重要的分子生物学的理解 人类病原体。 对5‘NC，CORE， Over包膜2基因的包膜1和高变区 40株丙型肝炎病毒。此外，中和分析基于 在体外阻断病毒与敏感细胞的附着 预防黑猩猩体内感染的方法已经开发出来，并 以特异性和敏感度为特征。原型 各种基因型丙型肝炎病毒的毒株，包括一些 在这个实验室中发现的，正在被生物放大 和黑猩猩的进一步特征。含病毒的血浆池 将被打包和分发以供进一步表征，并用于 作为被动和主动免疫预防研究中的挑战接种剂， 等。

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) appears to be the major current etiological agent of transfusion-related non-A, non-B hepatitis. The HCV genome is a linear, positive-stranded RNA molecule of approximately 9,500 nucleotides and encodes a polyprotein of about 3,000 amino acids. Several stretches of amino acids in the HCV polyprotein share significant similarity with flavivirus and pestivirus proteins. Therefore, HCV is considered to be distantly related to these virus groups. The goal of this project is to increase our understanding of the molecular biology of this important human pathogen. Extensive sequence analysis has been performed on the 5'NC, core, envelope 1 and hypervariable region (HVR1) of envelope 2 genes of over forty strains of HCV. In addition, neutralization assays, based upon blocking of attachment of virus to susceptible cells in vitro and prevention of infection of chimpanzees in vivo, have been developed and are being characterized for specificity and sensitivity. Prototype strains of the various genotypes of HCV, including some of those discovered in this laboratory, are being biologically amplified in chimpanzees and further characterized. Pools of virus-containing plasma will be packaged and distributed for further characterization, and used as challenge inocula in studies of passive and active immunoprophylaxis, etc.