Research Article

Hepatitis C Virus E2 Protein Ectodomain Is Essential for Assembly of Infectious Virions

Figure 1

Chimeric JFH1/Con1E1E2 and JFH1/Con1E2 constructs are replication-competent. Schematic representation of the constructs used in this study (a). JFH1-derived and nontranslated regions are drawn as thick black lines and JFH1 proteins are depicted as open boxes. JFH1/Con1E1E2 and JFH1/Con1E2 comprise chimeric HCV E1 and E2 proteins consisting of Con1 (black boxes) fused with JFH1 at the indicated positions. (b) Replication of JFH1 and given mutants. S6.1 cells were fixed 72 hrs posttransfection, permeabilized, and incubated with mouse anticore mAb (3G1-1). Cells were then stained with antimouse-AF-568 secondary antibody (red) and replication-positive cells were visualized by core-specific immunofluorescence. Western blot analysis of PNSs from JFH1, Con1/E1E2, and JFH1/Con1E2 transfected cells and from not transfected cells (NT) is also reported on the bottom. The band of 20 Kda resulted from SDS-PAGE correspond to core protein.
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