Palmer, BA,Menton, J,Levis, J,Kenny-Walsh, E,Crosbie, O,Fanning, LJ

2012

January

Archives of Virology

The pan-genotype specificity of the hepatitis C virus anti-core monoclonal antibody C7-50 is contingent on the quasispecies profile of a population

Validated

()

CELL-LINES IN-VITRO INFECTION REPLICATION PERMISSIVENESS DETERMINANTS EVOLUTION

157

2235

2239

The inter/intra-genotype quasispecies makeup of hepatitis C virus (HCV) has retarded the development of antibodies capable of pan-genotype reactivity. Mutations, even in conserved domains, are tolerated to a degree. In this report, we characterise the pan-genotype specificity of the commercially available monoclonal anti-HCV core antibody C7-50. We demonstrate the antibody's ability to detect HCV core protein following infection of Huh7 cells with serum-derived HCV of genotypes 2-5 and that a single-site polymorphism in a genotype 3a core amino acid sequence is sufficient to disrupt antibody recognition of the epitope. This same polymorphism is a feature of genotype 3 viruses.

DOI 10.1007/s00705-012-1418-4