Summary
The genomes of nine GBV-C/HGV isolates from Japanese chronic hepatitis patients were fully sequenced and characterized. They shared 85% nucleotide sequence homology with previously characterized isolates from the US and West Africa. Homology studies and phylogenetic analyses showed that the Japanese isolates formed a third group distinct from the established groups 1 and 2. The genetic distances between the three groups of GBV-C/HGV were very similar to the distances between the two classical swine fever virus (CSFV) serotypes, which suggested that they might belong to a separate GBV-C/HGV serotype. Plot similarity analysis comparing the three groups exposed relatively conserved terminal non-coding regions. Hairpin structures predicted in the Japanese isolates are probably involved in viral replication. The region coding E1-E2-NS-2 showed the least similarity (80%); in HCV the similarity here is only 50% due to its hypervariablity. NS-3 and NS-5b that respectivity encode the helicase/protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, had a high degree of amino acid homo- logy, suggesting a high degree of functional constraint in this region. The NS-5b nucleotide sequence was highly conserved perhaps because of constraints from RNA secondary structure and/or an open reading frame in the negative strand.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Received November 19, 1997 Accepted January 30, 1998
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Katayama, K., Kageyama, T., Fukushi, S. et al. Full-length GBV-C/HGV genomes from nine Japanese isolates: characterization by comparative analyses. Arch. Virol. 143, 1063–1075 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s007050050356
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s007050050356