THE HEPATITIS-C VIRUS GENOME - A GUIDE TO ITS CONSERVED SEQUENCES ANDCANDIDATE EPITOPES

A comprehensive analysis of reported hepatitis C virus genomic sequenc es comprising 151 partial or complete nucleotide sequences and 159 par tial or complete amino acid sequences revealed an irregular compositio n of conserved and variable regions. There were but eight conserved nu cleotide sequences, none outside the 5' noncoding and structural regio ns. A search among conserved amino acid sequences revealed 14 candidat e B-cell epitopes, which were chosen mainly on the basis of their hydr ophilicity profiles. Twenty five candidate T-cell epitopes were select ed according to the criteria of absolute conservation of amino acid se quence, together with characteristic sequence motifs, amphipathic heli cal structure, or both. Conserved peptide sequences, with the characte ristics of both B- and T-cell epitopes, were identified in the nonstru ctural 5 (NS5) region of the genome.