Genomic characterization of hepatitis C virus transmitted founder variants with deep sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Transfer of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection from a donor to a new recipient is associated with a bottleneck of genetic diversity in the transmitted viral variants. Existing data suggests that one, or very few, variants emerge from this bottleneck to establish the infection (transmitted founder [T/F] variants). In HCV, very few T/F variants have been characterized due to the challenges of obtaining early infection samples and of high throughput viral genome sequencing. This study used a large, acute HCV, deep-sequenced dataset from first viremia samples collected in nine prospective cohorts across four countries, to estimate the prevalence of single T/F viruses, and to identify host and virus-related factors associated with infections initiated by a single T/F variant. The short reads gen

SUBMITTER: Abayasingam A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6487228 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature