Quasispecies Changes with Distinctive Point Mutations in the Hepatitis C Virus Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES) Derived from PBMCs and Plasma

Figure 1

Nucleotide differences detected in 5’UTR sequences derived from patient PBMCs and plasma. Nucleotide changes in PBMC-derived IRES sequences (n=225) are indicated in blue while nucleotide changes in plasma-derived IRES sequences (n=225) are indicated in red. Similarities in nucleotide frequency variation between PBMC and plasma-derived samples are represented in green dots while differences are represented in yellow dots. Structural domains are indicated in Roman letters (I-IV). The start codon AUG is highlighted in stem-loop domain IV. Substitution sites are indicated as squares and arrows indicate mutations described in the text. Nucleotide sequence and putative secondary RNA structure of the 5’UTR [nt. 1-383 genotype 1b (GenBank, AJ238799.1)] was adapted from Honda et al. [24].