期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1999
卷号：96
期号：5
页码：2291-2295
DOI：10.1073/pnas.96.5.2291
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Large sections of the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of hepatitis C virus (HCV) were deleted from an infectious cDNA clone, and the RNA transcripts from seven deletion mutants were tested sequentially for infectivity in a chimpanzee. Mutants lacking all or part of the 3' terminal conserved region or the poly(U-UC) region were unable to infect the chimpanzee, indicating that both regions are critical for infectivity in vivo. However, the third region, the variable region, was able to tolerate a deletion that destroyed the two putative stem-loop structures within this region. Mutant VR-24 containing a deletion of the proximal 24 nt of the variable region of the 3' UTR was viable in the chimpanzee and seemed to replicate as well as the undeleted parent virus. The chimpanzee became viremic 1 week after inoculation with mutant VR-24, and the HCV genome titer increased over time during the early acute infection. Therefore, the poly(U-UC) region and the conserved region, but not the variable region, of the 3' UTR seem to be critical for in vivo infectivity of HCV.
