FIG. 1.

Proliferation assay with 83 peptides covering NS3 helicase and NS4. PBMC of 20 patients with current or past acute hepatitis C were tested with a set of 83 20-mer peptides, overlapping by 10 amino acids, and covering amino acid positions 1207 to 2014 of a genotype 1b HCV strain by proliferation assay. The results are shown as numbers of significant reactions (i.e., stimulation index [SI] of >3) per peptide (A). The peptides which were recognized by 30% or more of the 20 patients are marked by arrows. If the cutoff for significance is varied from >2 to >5, only minor changes are observed in the hierarchy of immunodominant epitopes (B).