Morsica G, Sitia G, Bernardi M T, Tambussi G, Novati R, De Bona A, Gianotti N, Lazzarin A
Infectious Diseases Department, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Scand J Infect Dis. 2001;33(2):116-20. doi: 10.1080/003655401750065490.
We describe a case of symptomatic acute infection with HCV in a woman whose sexual partner had chronic hepatitis C. The patient cleared HCV RNA 8 weeks after the onset of acute hepatitis and was found to be persistently HCV-RNA negative during 90 weeks of follow-up. Part of the E-2 region of HCV was directly sequenced in the patient and her sexual partner. Four local controls with subtype-1a infection and 9 1a isolates obtained from GenBank were analyzed. The average nucleotide divergence between the sequences of the infected patient and her sexual partner was 5.1%, compared with an average nucleotide divergence of 19.4% (range 16.6-21.8%) between the sequences of the patient and those of controls. Comparison of the phylogenetic trees in the partial E-2 region showed that the sequence of the patient was closely related to that of her sexual partner. Our findings suggest that the infection was transmitted to the patient from her sexual partner. The resolution of acute hepatitis C in this case was probably related to the host rather than to intrinsic characteristics of the HCV genome.
我们描述了一例有症状的急性丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染病例，患者的性伴侣患有慢性丙型肝炎。该患者在急性肝炎发作8周后HCV RNA转阴，且在90周的随访期间持续HCV - RNA阴性。对患者及其性伴侣的HCV E - 2区域部分进行了直接测序。分析了4例1a亚型感染的本地对照以及从GenBank获得的9株1a分离株。感染患者与其性伴侣序列之间的平均核苷酸差异为5.1%，而患者与对照序列之间的平均核苷酸差异为19.4%（范围为16.6 - 21.8%）。部分E - 2区域系统发育树的比较表明，患者的序列与其性伴侣的序列密切相关。我们的研究结果表明，该感染是由患者的性伴侣传播给她的。此例急性丙型肝炎的痊愈可能与宿主有关，而非HCV基因组的内在特性。
