Hepatitis C update.

Hepatitis C virus The identification of the viral genome over 10 years ago rapidly led to the delineation of the genome organization and the structural and biochemical characterization of several viral proteins. However, studies of the viral life cycle, inhibition or inactivation of the virus as well as the development of vaccines or antiviral drugs have been difficult because of the lack of a robust and reliable cultivation system for the virus. The chimpanzee is still the only experimental animal susceptible to infection with HCV. Nevertheless, some new developments have been reported recently, which may eventually lead to a solution to this problem. The genome of HCV is heterogeneous and quasispecies with variations in the viral genome are being studied for their implication in persistent infection and immune response. A recent study showed that the distribution of hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) quasispecies in both immune and nonimmune complexes conspicuously changed over time in most of the patients studied. These findings suggest that major HCV clones escape neutralization by anti-HVR1 antibodies by generating considerably divergent minor “decoy” clones which may be preferentially neutralized.