Abstract
Although the hepatitis G virus is unlikely to be a primary hepatotropic virus, its replication sites remain unclear. Using highly strand-specific Tth-based reverse transcriptase PCR we searched for the presence of the viral RNA negative strand in various autopsy tissues in two patients who died of end-stage liver disease. In addition, amplified viral sequences were compared in the 5' untranslated and the putative capsid regions by the single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP). Negative strand HGV RNA was detected in bone marrow and spleen from both patients and in lymph node tissue from one. All amplified sequences from a given patient were identical when compared by SSCP and direct sequencing. This lack of difference in the composition of quasispecies recovered from various tissues suggests the presence of a single, common viral compartment in the infected host.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 296-299 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications |
Volume | 258 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 10 1999 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Cell Biology