Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection causes acute and chronic hepatitis leading to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma which are the major health problems around the world including Thai population. Many recent studies were shown an important role of microRNA (miRNA) to inhibit or promote viral replication. This study aimed to investigate human miRNAs and analyze hybridization patterns between ...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is transmitted primarily through percutaneous exposure to contaminated blood especially in healthcare settings and among people who inject drugs. The environmental stability of HCV has been extrapolated from studies with the bovine viral diarrhoea virus or was so far only addressed with HCV genotype 2a viruses. The aim of this study was to compare the environmental and t...

Viral hepatitis is one of the most important liver diseases in the world. Duration of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and response to standard therapy is strongly related to HCV genotypes. Geographical distribution of HCV genotypes is also important for epidemiological studies. We aimed to determine the distribution of HCV genotypes and their prevalence in Eastern Turkey. Fifty eight Anti-HCV...

Because of the extreme genetic variability of hepatitis C virus (HCV), we analyzed the NS5B polymerase genetic variability in circulating HCV genotypes/subtypes and its impact on the genetic barrier for the development of resistance to clinically relevant nucleoside inhibitors (NIs)/nonnucleoside inhibitors (NNIs). The study included 1,145 NS5B polymerase sequences retrieved from the Los Alamos...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The distribution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes varies geographically. In Korea, genotypes 1 and 2 comprise more than 90% of HCV infections, while genotype 6 is very rare. This study compared the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of patients with genotype 6 HCV infection with those infected with HCV genotypes 1 and 2. METHODS This was a prospective, multicente...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Molecular epidemiology of hepatitis C virus (HCV) shows that HCV genotypes are unique with respect to their nucleotide sequence, geographical distribution and clinical relationship. METHODS In this study we enrolled 67 HCV-infected individuals with various stages of liver disease from four geographical regions of Turkey. A partial NS5B region of the HCV genome was sequenced an...

INTRODUCTION Six genotypes of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) have been identified thus far, and their distribution is well defined. Genotype 1, which is the most prevalent worldwide, is always compared to genotypes 2 and 3, particularly in terms of treatment response. However, little is known about the differences between genotypes 2 and 3 because these genotypes are analyzed together in most stud...

Quick and accurate genotyping of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is becoming increasingly important for clinical management of chronic infection and as an epidemiological marker. Furthermore, the incidence of HCV infection with mixed genotypes has clinical significance that is not addressed by most genotyping methods. We have developed a fluorescence-based genotyping assay called primer-specific extens...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and its progression are major health problems that many countries including Saudi Arabia are facing. Determination of HCV genotypes and subgenotypes is critical for epidemiological and clinical analysis and aids in the determination of the ideal treatment strategy that needs to be followed and the expected therapy response. Although HCV infection has be...

Genotyping of hepatitis C virus (HCV) plays an important role in the treatment of HCV. As new genotype-specific treatment options become available, it has become increasingly important to have accurate HCV genotype and subtype information to ensure that the most appropriate treatment regimen is selected. Most current genotyping methods are unable to detect mixed genotypes from two or more HCV i...