Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) circulates as particleshaving differing buoyant densities. Changes in therelative proportions of virus particles of differentdensities were examined in 19 patients with chronic hepatitis C: 6 without (group A) and 13 with(group B) abnormal serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT)levels. High- and low-density virus particles wereseparated by differential flotation centrifugation. The numbers of high-density particlesconsistently exceeded that of low-density particles inall patients in group A, whereas the titers of bothtypes of particles were the same at least once in 7 of10 patients sampled at two time points in group B.The ALT level significantly increased, <2 monthslater (P < 0.05) when the titers of both types ofparticles were the same in patients in group B. Thus, we found a correlation between the relativenumbers of circulating low-density HCV particles anddisease activity in chronic hepatitis Cpatients.
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Hino, K., Fujii, K., Korenaga, M. et al. Correlation Between Relative Number of Circulating Low-Density Hepatitis C Virus Particles and Disease Activity in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C. Dig Dis Sci 42, 2476–2481 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018800225815
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018800225815