There are two major types of hepatitis C virus in Japan.
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.
Enomoto
N
N
Department of Internal Medicine, Kanazawa Medical University, Ishikawa, Japan.
Takada
A
A
Nakao
T
T
Date
T
T
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
D004279:DNA, Viral