title: Phylogenetic analysis of hepatitis GB virus type C/hepatitis G virus in Spanish patients with chronic hepatitis B or C virus infection.
abstract: The nucleotide sequence of hepatitis GB virus type C (HGBV-C)/hepatitis G virus (HGV) NS3/helicase and 5'-untranslated regions from 23 Spanish patients were analyzed to assign the HGV isolates one of the proposed HGBV-C/HGV genotypes. The analysis of the evolutionary distance frequency showed that the distances among all sequences in NS3/helicase region were distributed around a single peak of 0.20, suggesting that all included sequences belonged to the same HGBV-C/HGV genotype. By contrast, in the 5'-untranslated region, all the distances corresponding to our sequences and those of the HGBV-C/HGV types 2 and 3 were distributed around a major peak of 0.03. The remaining distances corresponding to the HGBV-C/HGV type 1 sequences were distributed around a minor peak of 0.11. The phylogenetic tree and pairwise comparison of evolutionary distances among the 5'-untranslated region of the infected patients and each HGBV-C/HGV genotype demonstrated that our HGBV-C/HGV isolates belonged to subtype 2a (17/23; 78%) and 2b (5/23; 22%). No relation was found between HGBV-C/HGV subtype and hepatitis B or C virus infection.
mesh_terms: D020121:5' Untranslated Regions / Q000235:genetics; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D018067:Flaviviridae / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000821:virology*; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000821:virology*; D006525:Hepatitis, Viral, Human / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013030:Spain; D017361:Viral Nonstructural Proteins / Q000235:genetics