POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE STRAND OF HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-RNA SEQUENCES IN PERIPHERAL-BLOOD MONONUCLEAR-CELLS IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C - NO CORRELATION WITH VIRAL GENOTYPES 1B, 2A, AND 2B

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has many genotypes which are closely associate d with the severity of chronic hepatitis and the response to antiviral therapy. Although HCV is essentially hepatotropic, several lines of e vidence suggest that this virus can infect peripheral blood mononuclea r cells (PBMC) in most patients with chronic HCV infection. However, t he methods used previously to detect negative-strand HCV RNA have been questioned, and the PBMC tropism of different HCV genotypes remains u nknown. A stringent method was used to investigate the prevalence of p ositive- and negative-strand HCV RNA in the PBMC of 106 patients with chronic hepatitis C and to analyze the influence of HCV genotype on th e tropism of PBMC. HCV type 1b was the predominant strain in the patie nts. Positive-strand RNA in PBMC was detected in 83 (78%) and 40% had negative-strand RNA. The demographic and clinical features were compar able among different patients grouped by the replication status of HCV in the plasma and PBMC samples. In addition, there was no significant difference of PBMC tropism between type 1b and non-1b HCV. In summary , HCV does in deed infect actively the PBMC of chronic hepatitis C pat ients and such infection is not correlated to the pathogenesis of live r cell damage. Moreover, the genotype is not associated specifically w ith PBMC tropism of HCV. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.