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. 1998 Apr;72(4):2795–2805. doi: 10.1128/jvi.72.4.2795-2805.1998

TABLE 1.

Epidemiological, clinical, and histological features of the 13 patients studied and characteristics of the NS5A quasispecies before treatment

Patient Sex Age (yr) Liver histologya Response to IFN-αb Viral load (log10 copies/ml)c Nd Normalized entropy
Mean genetic distance (SEM) within samplese Type of mutational changef
Nucleo- tide Amino acid Mean (SEM) synonymous Mean (SEM) nonsynonymous
1 Female 37 CAH SVR 5.5 30 0.156 0.114 0.0715 (0.0279) 0.2022 (0.0668) 0.0373 (0.0143)*
2 Male 32 CAH SVR 5.9 31 0.265 0.246 0.0135 (0.0017) 0.0000 (0.0000) 0.0183 (0.0084)
3 Male 53 CAH SVR 3.9 48 0.127 0.085 0.0115 (0.0012) 0.0101 (0.0102) 0.0116 (0.0069)
4 Male 30 CAH SVR 4.2 48 0.219 0.000 0.0110 (0.0012) 0.0362 (0.0216) 0.0032 (0.0032)
5 Female 38 CAH SVR 4.7 36 0.455 0.436 0.0608 (0.0107) 0.1220 (0.0401) 0.0287 (0.0103)*
6 Male 44 CAH NR 5.3 30 0.236 0.180 0.0391 (0.0109) 0.1279 (0.0539) 0.0131 (0.0093)*
7 Female 69 CAH NR 5.4 30 0.695 0.466 0.0656 (0.0039) 0.2007 (0.0562) 0.0264 (0.0090)**
8 Male 32 CAH NR 6.2 35 0.439 0.085 0.0380 (0.0061) 0.1340 (0.0444) 0.0112 (0.0056)**
9 Male 55 CAH NR 5.6 40 0.424 0.240 0.0262 (0.0028) 0.0846 (0.0295) 0.0090 (0.0054)*
10 Male 67 CAH +cirrhosis NR 5.8 36 0.761 0.473 0.0643 (0.0021) 0.2135 (0.0508) 0.0239 (0.0088)***
11 Female 63 CAH NR 5.7 34 0.750 0.331 0.0528 (0.0032) 0.2053 (0.0590) 0.0131 (0.0067)**
12 Male 28 CAH NR 5.6 48 0.652 0.226 0.0371 (0.0023) 0.1158 (0.0378) 0.0116 (0.0070)**
13 Female 64 CAH NR 6.1 36 0.551 0.291 0.0595 (0.0047) 0.2073 (0.0532) 0.0200 (0.0076)****
a

CAH, chronic active hepatitis. 

b

SVR, sustained virological response, characterized by normal ALT and negative HCV RNA PCR during treatment and 6 months after; NR, nonresponse, characterized by the lack of effect of IFN-α on ALT and HCV RNA. 

c

Viral load was measured by the Amplicor HCV Monitor assay (Roche Molecular Systems, Branchburg, N.J.). 

d

Number of independent clones analyzed before treatment. 

e

The within- and between-sample genetic distances within NS5A quasispecies were calculated by using the DNADIST program in the PHYLIP package version 3.752 (20). 

f

The proportions of synonymous mutations per synonymous site and of nonsynonymous mutations per nonsynonymous site were calculated by means of the MEGA program (39). P values lower than 0.05 were considered to indicate significant differences. The proportion of synonymous substitutions per potential synonymous site was compared to the proportion of nonsynonymous mutations per potential nonsynonymous site by using a t test (*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001; ****, P < 0.0001; P ≥ 0.05 was considered not significant).