Relationship between diversity of hepatitis C quasispecies and histological severity of liver disease

The aim of this work was to assess if the diversity of hepatitis C virus (H CV) quasispecies is related to histological severity and duration of infect ion in a cohort of untreated patients with an estimated onset of the diseas e. A total of 27 patients with diagnosis of chronic liver disease and histo ry of blood transfusion (n = 16) or intravenous drug use (IDU) (n = 11) wer e included. All were anti-HCV positive and had detectable serum HCV-RNA. Th e onset and the duration of the disease were estimated from the time of the transfusion or the first drug injection. Patients who consumed drugs for m ore than 2 years, or were coinfected with HBV or HIV were excluded. History of alcohol intake (> 80 g/day), ALT level and age at infection were record ed. Histological assessment of grading and staging was performed according to Knodell score. The quasispecies diversity was investigated by single str and conformation polymorphism (SSCP) targeted to HVR-E2 region and SSCP pat tern was evaluated as a single or multiple bands. The number of quasispecie s did not correlate with the estimated duration of the disease. Patients wh o acquired hepatitis C by blood transfusion did not differ in number of ban ds from patients who were IDU. There was no correlation between the heterog eneity of HCV quasispecies and age, serum ALT, Knodell score, HAI and fibro sis. In conclusion the cuasiespecies diversity of E2 had no correlation wit h grade and stage of chronic HCV infection and the presence of quasispecies was independent of the duration of the disease.