TY - JOUR
T1 - Characteristics of hepatitis C virus before and after interferon treatment in patients with ongoing viraemia but sustained biochemical response
AU - Donadel, Elena
AU - Pontisso, Patrizia
AU - Ruvoletto, Maria Grazia
AU - Gerotto, Martina
AU - De Salvo, Gianluca
AU - Chemello, Liliana
AU - Casarin, Carla
AU - Alberti, Alfredo
PY - 1998/1
Y1 - 1998/1
N2 - In hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, persistent viraemia can occur after successful biochemical response to interferon treatment. To assess whether this unusual profile might be due to trivial amounts of remaining virus or to the emergence of less pathogenic HCV strains, pre-and posttreatment sera from 27 patients who remained with HCV-RNA, despite sustained transaminase normalisation after interferon therapy, were investigated. All but one had infection by genotype 2 (P <0.0001), and levels of HCV-RNA were not decreased after therapy. Sequence comparison of the 5' untranslated region revealed mixed viral populations and 'not compensatory' nucleotide transitions localised at the stem level of the secondary structure of this region in samples taken before and after treatment. Neither quantitative nor qualitative viral changes, at least for the 5' untranslated region, are responsible for interferon-induced biochemical remission in these patients typically infected by genotype 2.
AB - In hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, persistent viraemia can occur after successful biochemical response to interferon treatment. To assess whether this unusual profile might be due to trivial amounts of remaining virus or to the emergence of less pathogenic HCV strains, pre-and posttreatment sera from 27 patients who remained with HCV-RNA, despite sustained transaminase normalisation after interferon therapy, were investigated. All but one had infection by genotype 2 (P <0.0001), and levels of HCV-RNA were not decreased after therapy. Sequence comparison of the 5' untranslated region revealed mixed viral populations and 'not compensatory' nucleotide transitions localised at the stem level of the secondary structure of this region in samples taken before and after treatment. Neither quantitative nor qualitative viral changes, at least for the 5' untranslated region, are responsible for interferon-induced biochemical remission in these patients typically infected by genotype 2.
KW - 5'UTR sequence analysis
KW - Asymptomatic carriership
KW - HCV infection
KW - Viral load
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U2 - 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9071(199801)54:1<7::AID-JMV2>3.0.CO;2-B
DO - 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9071(199801)54:1<7::AID-JMV2>3.0.CO;2-B
M3 - Article
C2 - 9443103
AN - SCOPUS:0031984503
VL - 54
SP - 7
EP - 11
JO - Journal of Medical Virology
JF - Journal of Medical Virology
SN - 0146-6615
IS - 1
ER -