Identification of a single genotype of hepatitis G virus by comparison of one complete genome from a healthy carrier with eight from patients with hepatitis.

Abstract

Different isolates of a putative hepatitis virus called hepatitis GB virus C or hepatitis G virus (HGV) have been cloned recently from patients with hepatitis. This virus has also been found commonly in healthy carriers. We have cloned and sequenced a complete HGV genome, designated HGVCN, from a healthy Chinese blood donor. HGVCN shares 85n8-90n0% nucleotide sequence identity and 95n4-97n5% amino acid identity with the eight available fulllength HGV genomes. Furthermore, the majority (82n8 %) of the nucleotide substitutions found in HGVCN were synonymous and a fairly uniform distribution of changes was found across the entire genome without identification of any hypervariable

Hepatitis G virus genotypes in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands: A possible new Pacific type identified

“…A recent report which compared all of the full‐length HGV/GBV‐C genomes available at the time of writing found that nine isolates shared more than 85% of identical nucleotides and more than 95% of identical amino acids, which led the authors to suggest that only one genotype of this virus has been identified worldwide. 13 This is consistent with data obtained in studies which have attempted to genotype this virus in regions other than the 5′UTR. No evidence was found in the present study to suggest that a 555 bp product from the putative NS3 region could be classified into groups that correlated with those identified in the 5′UTR while other studies have also reported a similar lack of grouping in this region as well as in the core, envelope and the NS5 regions.…”

Hepatitis G virus/GBV‐C persistence: absence of hypervariable E2 region and genetic analysis of viral quasispecies in serum and lymphocytes

“…Thus, the stability of the HGV/GBV-C E2 region sequence, even after IFN immunomodulation, suggests that the virus does not induce a humoral immune response during persistent infection and therefore this region is under no significant pressure to change. These findings are in agreement with previous studies of single isolates from individual patients, which have shown that although there is amino acid variation in E2 between different isolates, no hypervariable region could be identified [30][31][32][33].…”

“…Our findings indicate that the E2 envelope glycoprotein of HGV/GBV-C does not have a region, with a high rate of mutation, equivalent to the HVR1 of HCV, and this agrees with previous findings [30][31][32][33]. In the case of HCV, variability in amino acid sequence of the HVR1, which consists of the first 26 amino acids of the extreme N-terminal end of E2, is thought to be the result of antibody selection of neutralization-escape mutants.…”

Age-specific prevalence and genetic diversity of GBV-C/hepatitis G virus in Brazil

“…This was in contrast to HCV, for which three levels of nonoverlapping distributions were observed, representing types, subtypes, and isolates. The existence of a single genotype of GBV-C/ HGV has thus been proposed [Wang et al, 1997]. We carried out a phylogenetic analysis with 17 sequences available in databanks, based on more than half of the genome (nucleotides 1 to 5,000).…”