title: There are two major types of hepatitis C virus in Japan.
abstract: The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect hepatitis C virus (HCV) in plasma from chronic non-A, non-B hepatitis patients. By choice of adequate primers, 19 of 24 samples (79%) were found positive. Sequence analysis of amplified 400 bp cDNA fragments encoding a portion of NS5 gene suggested that HCV can be classified into two types (named K1 and K2) in Japan. Slot blot hybridization of the fragments indicated that 13 were HCV-K1 and 6 were HCV-K2, which show 80% and 67% nucleotide sequence homology, respectively, with that of the prototype.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Kanazawa Medical University, Ishikawa, Japan.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Enomoto
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Takada
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakao
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Date
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D006525:Hepatitis, Viral, Human / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral