Genetic evolution of structural region of hepatitis C virus in primary infection

Table 1 Molecular, biochemical, and serological characterization of the nine HCV primary infections

Subject	Sample	Age (yr)/Sex	Duration of nfection (month)	Log10[HCVi RNA]a	ALT level (IU/mL)b	Result of ELISAc
A		28/F
	A1		0	7.12	116	Neg
	A2		8	6.90	69	Pos
	A3		12	6.58	92	Pos
B		30/M
	B1		0	7.27	110	Ne g
	B2		6	6.50	35	Pos
	B3		29	5.70	37	Pos
C		33/M
	C1		0	6.41	41	Pos
	C2		24	5.25	23	Pos
	C3		34	5.14	10	Pos

^a Number of HCV RNA molecules per mL plasma. Time zero is the time where the first sample was available; other time are times after time zero.

^b Normal value, < 40 IU/mL.

^cELISA: neg, negative; pos, posative.

Table 2 Characteristics of samples and results of SSCP/HDA*

Sample	Genotype	Clonotype distribution**	No. of clonotypes	Clonotype ratio
A1	3b	27, 3, 1, 1, 1	5	0.15
A2		15, 7, 5, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1	8	0.24
A3		12, 8, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1	11	0.33
B1	3b	21, 7, 2, 1, 1	5	0.15
B2		19, 7, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1	7	0.21
B3		10, 4, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1	17	0.52
C1	1b	17, 11, 2, 1, 1, 1	6	0.18
C2		8, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1	10	0.30
C3		7, 4, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1	21	0.63

*Clonotype, a group of electrophoretically indistinguishable cloned cDNAs; clonotype ratio, the number of clonotypes divided by 33, the number of clones examined; **Each number represents a clonotype; the value indicates the number of cloned cDNAs assigned to that clonotype by the SSCP/HDA method.