Hypervariable region diversity of hepatitis C virus and humoral response: comparison between patients with or without cirrhosis.

To investigate the potential clinical utility of antibody response to HVR1 of HCV, the genomic and amino acid diversity of HVR1 was compared between two groups of four chronic HCV carriers with or without liver cirrhosis. Peptides corresponding to the deduced COOH- and NH2-terminal amino acid sequences of HVR1 were synthesised to assess the reactivity of patient sera to autologous and homologous HVR1 epitopes by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. HCV chronic carriers had significantly more frequent cross-reactivity with homologous C- than N-terminal HVR1 peptides. Twelve cirrhotic and eleven noncirrhotic patients had a similar frequency of cross-reactivity with either C- or N-terminal HVR1 peptides. However, noncirrhotic patients had a significantly higher level of C-terminal HVR1 antibody cross-reactivity than cirrhotic patients. In HCV chronic carriers, the magnitude of the immune response to but not the frequency of cross-reactivity with C-terminus HVR1 peptides differ between patients with and without liver cirrhosis.