Broad and Dynamic Diversification of Infectious Hepatitis C Virus in a Cell Culture Environment.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies documented that long-term hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication in human hepatoma Huh-7.5 cells resulted in viral fitness gain, expansion of the mutant spectrum, and several phenotypic alterations. In the present work, we show that mutational waves (changes in frequency of individual mutations) occurred continuously and became more prominent as the virus gained fitness. They were accompanied by an increasing proportion of heterogeneous genomic sites that affected 1 position in the initial HCV population and 19 and 69 positions at passages 100 and 200, respectively. Analysis of biological clones of HCV showed that these dynamic events affected infectious genomes, since part of the fluctuating mutations became incorporated into viable genomes. While 17 mutations were scored in

SUBMITTER: Gallego I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7158725 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature