Kao J H, Chen P J, Yang P M, Lai M Y, Wang T H, Chen D S
Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei.
J Med Virol. 1996 Jun;49(2):87-90. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9071(199606)49:2<87::AID-JMV3>3.0.CO;2-F.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) carriers usually have antibodies to HCV; however, there are viremic individuals without these antibodies. To investigate whether variations of the viral genome are responsible for this discrepancy, the nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of HCV capsid and nonstructural regions obtained from 15 viremic patients were examined. These 15 patients were infected with type 1b HCV, and 10 did not have antibody to HCV assayed with second-generation tests. The nucleotide homology of the 5 seropositive and 10 seronegative patients with the HCV prototype sequence were 91.6% and 91.9%, respectively, in the capsid region. There was no apparent difference in the deduced amino acid sequences between the two groups of patients studied (94% vs. 95%). The nucleotide and amino acid sequences of a part of the nonstructural region 3 also showed similar results. These findings suggest that absence of antibodies against both capsid and nonstructural peptides in HCV carriers is not caused by genetic heterogeneity of the viral epitopes.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）携带者通常具有抗HCV抗体；然而，有些病毒血症患者却没有这些抗体。为了研究病毒基因组的变异是否导致了这种差异，我们检测了15例病毒血症患者的HCV衣壳和非结构区的核苷酸及推导的氨基酸序列。这15例患者感染的是1b型HCV，其中10例用二代检测法检测未发现抗HCV抗体。在衣壳区，5例血清阳性患者和10例血清阴性患者与HCV原型序列的核苷酸同源性分别为91.6%和91.9%。两组患者推导的氨基酸序列没有明显差异（分别为94%和95%）。非结构区3部分的核苷酸和氨基酸序列也显示出类似结果。这些发现表明，HCV携带者中缺乏针对衣壳和非结构肽的抗体并非由病毒表位的基因异质性所致。
