Kumar U, Monjardino J, Thomas H C
Academic Department of Medicine, St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London, England.
Gastroenterology. 1994 Apr;106(4):1072-5. doi: 10.1016/0016-5085(94)90770-6.
In an agammaglobulinemic patient with chronic hepatitis C, a previously identified hypervariable region of the major envelope glycoprotein remained unchanged for 2.5 years. Serum-derived RNA amplified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was cloned in a bacterial vector, and a minimum of three independent clones were sequenced by dideoxy chain termination reaction. Comparison of consensus sequences from three different time points during the chronic phase of infection showed absolute homology at both amino acid and nucleotide levels. This finding provides support for the role of antibody selection in generating genetic variation and viral persistence; also, it is consistent with the hypothesis that an epitope within this region is the site of virus neutralization. The observations show that the hepatitis seen in hepatitis C virus infection is not dependent on the humoral immune response.
在一名患有慢性丙型肝炎的无丙种球蛋白血症患者中，主要包膜糖蛋白先前确定的高变区在2.5年内保持不变。通过逆转录-聚合酶链反应扩增的血清来源RNA被克隆到细菌载体中，并通过双脱氧链终止反应对至少三个独立克隆进行测序。对感染慢性期三个不同时间点的共有序列进行比较，结果显示在氨基酸和核苷酸水平上均具有绝对同源性。这一发现为抗体选择在产生基因变异和病毒持续存在中的作用提供了支持；此外，这与该区域内的一个表位是病毒中和位点的假说相一致。这些观察结果表明，丙型肝炎病毒感染中出现的肝炎并不依赖于体液免疫反应。
