Spectrum of antibodies to HCV antigens in patients with different clinical patterns of chronic HCV infection

Correlations between the spectra of antibodies to HCV proteins represented by various antigenic determinants and clinical variants of chronic HCV infection were studied. Synthetic peptides core-16, NS4-20, and NS5-23 simulating the immunodominant regions of the core, NS4 and NS5 proteins and recombinant proteins core-114 and NS4-86 were used as antigens. The results indicate that if the serum of an HCV patients contains no IgG to both antigenic determinants of NS4 or to NS5 in combination with any core antigenic determinant, a clinical and biochemical remission is highly probable. Chronic hepatitis C is characterized by the presence of IgG in high titers to both antigenic determinants of NS4 protein, particularly in combination with anti-NS5 IgG in low titers or none at all, or high titers of anti-core-16 IgG in combination with high titers of anti-NS4-20 IgG.