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Hepatitis C virus quasispecies in plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells of treatment naïve chronically infected patients
Author(s) -
VeraOtarola J.,
Barría M. I.,
León U.,
Marsac D.,
Carvallo P.,
Soza A.,
LópezLastra M.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of viral hepatitis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.329
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1365-2893
pISSN - 1352-0504
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2893.2009.01112.x
Subject(s) - viral quasispecies , peripheral blood mononuclear cell , virology , hepatitis c virus , rna , virus , medicine , biology , immunology , gene , in vitro , biochemistry
Summary. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 45 treatment naïve, HIV‐negative, chronically hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐infected patients were analyzed for the presence of HCV RNA. Viral RNA was detected in 73% of the studied patients. Single‐strand conformation polymorphism assays and sequence analysis of the HCV 5′untranslated regions amplified from RNA recovered from both Plasma and PBMCs suggested virus compartmentalization in 57.6% of patients studied. In summary, our study presents evidence that HCV RNA can be found in PBMCs of treatment naïve chronically infected patients that are not immunocompromised or co‐infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.