Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been considered as a major causative agent of post-transfusion related non-A, non-B hepatitis. In this study, the cDNA sequence of NS4 region of HCV (HCV-S) obtained from a Korean patient's plasma was determined. Comparative nucleotide sequence analysis between to type II. 67.2% homology to type III, and 66.4% homology to type IV. The putative amino acid sequence homologies to types I, II, III, and IV were 82.8-84.7%, 92.5-95.1%. 72.5% and 71.1% respectively. This data strongly suggests that HCV-S should be classified as type II. Significant similarities of hydrophobicity profiles and putative transmembranous domains were found in HCV-S and four major prototypes, indicating that the protein structure is similar in spite of the heterogeneities of intertype homologies at the level of the primary nucleotide and amino acid sequences.

• Keywords: HCV; RT-PCR; sequence homology; NS4