Molecular cloning of the human hepatitis C virus genome from Japanese patients with non-A, non-B hepatitis. |
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| Authors: | N Kato M Hijikata Y Ootsuyama M Nakagawa S Ohkoshi T Sugimura K Shimotohno |
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| Affiliation: | Virology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan. |
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| Abstract: | The nucleotide sequence of the Japanese type of hepatitis C virus (HCV-J) genome, consisting of 9413 nucleotides, was determined by analyses of cDNA clones from plasma specimens from Japanese patients with chronic hepatitis. HCV-J genome contains a long open reading frame that can encode a sequence of 3010 amino acid residues. Comparison of HCV-J with the American isolate of HCV showed 22.6% difference in nucleotide sequence and 15.1% difference in amino acid sequence. Thus HCV-J and the American isolate of HCV are probably different subtypes of HCV. The relationship of HCV-J with other animal RNA virus families and the putative organization of the HCV-J genome are discussed. |
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