SUSCEPTIBILITY OF HUMAN LIVER-CELL CULTURES TO HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-INFECTION

To develop a cell culture system susceptible to infection by hepatitis C virus (HCV), human fetal hepatocytes, grown in serum-free medium, w ere inoculated with serum samples from two HCV-infected patients. Vira l RNA sequences were detected by polymerase chain reaction, using prim ers specific for the 5' noncoding region of HCV, in extracts prepared from the hepatocyte cultures as early as 5 days after inoculation. Vir us was also released from the infected cells into the medium. The HCV strains could be serially passaged three times into fresh liver cell c ultures using intracellular virus as inoculum. Evidence that HCV repli cation really took place in primary human fetal hepatocytes was also o btained by detection of minus-strand viral RNA (replication intermedia te) in cell extracts and of viral antigens in the infected cells.