Although hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of non-A non-B hepatitis, its pathogenic role in fulminant hepatitis remains controversial. A 32-year-old man contracted hepatitis. Serum ALT concentration was reached to 6,970 IU/L, the lowest prothrombin time value was 16% and jaundice and stage II encephalopathy were developed. HCV RNA was detected in this patient by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in sera at the acute phase, and it was undetectable during the remission phase when anti-HCV was found. The entire genome of infected HCV was recovered, cloned, and sequenced from this patient, and compared with the clones of six other chronic hepatitis patients. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a clustering around genotype 2a and a deviation from the other 2a chronic hepatitis strains. Calculating the genetic distance in each subgenomic region revealed that the 5'untranslated region (5'UTR), core, nonstructural (NS) 3, and NS5A were severely deviated. Of 20 clones of the hypervariable region (HVR), 17 showed an identical sequence with the others showing a difference of only one amino acid. HCV was isolated from a fulminant hepatitis patient and its entire genome was recovered; a clustering around genotype 2a was observed, but the sequence deviated especially in 5'UTR, core, NS3, and NS5A; and monoclonality of the HVR sequence was found not only in the fulminant hepatitis patient but in a certain percentage of chronic hepatitis patients.

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) belongs to the genus Flavivirus within the family Flaviviridae. Members of the genus Flavivirus are predominantly arthropodborne viruses and frequently cause significant morbidity and mortality in mammals and birds (6). JEV is distributed in the south and southeast regions of Asia and kept in a zoonotic transmission cycle between pigs or birds and mosquitoes (6,50,57). JEV spreads to dead-end hosts, including humans, through the bite of JEVinfected mosquitoes and causes infection of the central nervous system, with a high mortality rate (6, 57). JEV has a single-stranded positive-strand RNA genome approximately 11 kb in length, which is capped at the 5Ј end but lacks modification of the 3Ј terminus by polyadenylation (34). The genomic RNA encodes a single large open reading frame, and a polyprotein translated from the genome is cleaved co-and posttranslationally by host and viral proteases to yield three structural proteins, the core, precursor membrane (prM), and envelope (E) proteins, and seven nonstructural proteins, NS1, NS2A, NS2B, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, and NS5 (53). Although the core protein has very little amino acid homology to other flaviviruses-for example, the core protein of JEV has only 25% homology to that of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV)-the structural properties, such as the hydrophobicity profile, abundances of basic amino acid residues, and secondary structures, are very similar (11,20,36). The flavivirus core proteins commonly contain two hydrophobic sequences in the center and a carboxyl-terminal end, and the carboxyl-terminal hydrophobic region serves as a signal sequence of prM. The signal-anchor sequence is cleaved off by the viral protease NS2B-3, and this cleavage is required for the subsequent liberation of the amino terminus of prM by the host signal peptidase (35,52,63). The mature core protein, released from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane, is believed to bind to the genomic RNA via the basic amino acid clusters at the amino and carboxyl termini and forms nucleocapsids (23). The central hydrophobic region of the core protein may be associated with the ER membrane, and this interaction is believed to facilitate the assembly of nucleocapsid and two membrane proteins, prM and E, and to bud into the ER lumen as virions (39). The removal of the central hydrophobic region of the TBEV core protein increased the production of the subviral particles that consist of (pr)M and E proteins but that lack a core protein and genomic RNA (26,27).In addition to their role as structural proteins, core proteins of dengue virus (DEN) and Kunjin virus (KUN) are localized not only in the cytoplasm but also in the nucleus, especially in the nucleoli of several infected cell lines (4,38,55,59,61). Transport from the cytoplasm to the nucleus occurs through nuclear pore complexes that penetrate the double lipid layers of the nuclear envelope. Small molecules up to 9 nm in diameter (Ͻ50 kDa) can freely diffuse through the nuclear pore complexes, while most macromolecu...

This system with a flexible suture for preoperative localization has a high success rate.

Pneumothorax and pleural effusion can occur after RF ablation in patients with lung tumors, and chest tube placement for pneumothorax is sometimes required.

RF ablation seems to be a promising treatment for malignant thoracic tumors.