Genomic characterization of hepatitis C virus isolates from Argentina

Abstract

Thirty-three Argentinian patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) were studied for viral genotyping. The patients included 10 hemophiliac and 4 polytransfused children and 19 adults: 3 polytransfused, 7 dialyzed and 9 sporadic cases. Core-based genotyping permitted the classification of 31 samples. Genotypes II, I and V were the most frequent: 21 (63.6%), 16 (48.4%) and 10 (30.3%) of the 33 patients, respectively. Only one polytransfused patient carried genotype IV. Genotype II was detected in 7 out of 9 sporadic cases. Thirteen patients (39.3%) were coinfected with two genotypes, and 2 others were coinfected with three genotypes. The remaining 2 samples which could not be typed were characterized following the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method, and were classified as type 1. One of these had two consecutive transitional mutations in the 5' untranslated region (5' UTR).

Mother-to-Child Transmission of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Among HIV/HCV-Coinfected Women

“…Only a few studies of HCV MTCT among HCV/HIV-coinfected populations have been conducted in Brazil [31,32] and Argentina [33][34][35]. In our study, HCV MTCT occurred only among mothers who were HCV-RNA positive (viremic).…”

Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Infants and Children from Argentina

“…Several studies have evaluated the epidemiology of HCV infection in children and/or adults in Argentina (12,14,23,24,(26)(27)(28), assessing the presence of HCV RNA in a single sample (1,23,26,28).…”

In Vitro Detection of Dissimilar Amounts of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Subtype-Specific RNA Genomes in Mixes Prepared from Sera of Persons Infected with a Single HCV Genotype

“…Details of blood processing as well as the RNA extraction procedure have been described elsewhere (15). Two sets of primers were used throughout these studies: set 1 (13,15) and set 2 (2), both of them corresponding to the 5Ј UTR. Outer antisense primers from both sets overlap at their 3Ј ends, except the last nucleotide from set 1.…”

“…In contrast, since no detectable NS5B amplicons were observed with either type 3 or type 4 isolates, fragments encompassing the 5Ј UTR-core region (510-bp amplicons) were chosen for RT-nested PCR amplification for subsequent phylogenetic analysis of these samples. These products were obtained by using both outer and inner sense oligonucleotides from set 2 primers (5Ј UTR) (2) and antisense primers 186 and 339 (core region) (13).…”

“…However, due to the narrow quantitative range of the HCV Monitor assay (11), quantities of the artificially mixed RNA templates used for RT-nested PCR assays in our study were based upon values calculated by the limiting dilution method. Second, primer annealing sites employed for 5Ј UTR HCV sequence amplification failed to show significant differences for the studied subtypes, although experiments were carried out with two independent sets of widely used primers (2,13,15). Third, comparative analysis of the secondary structures of the 5Ј UTRs (including the internal ribosome entry sites) of GenBank sequences from HCV RNAs belonging to subtypes assayed in this work revealed no variations interse, although there are point mutations that do not disturb the secondary structures due to the appearance of covariant substitutions (18).…”