FIG. 2.

Quality of HDV RNA detected in infected woodchuck liver. At the peak of an acute HDV infection of a woodchuck, the animal was sacrificed and total RNA was extracted from the liver. The poly(A)-containing RNA was then isolated, and the region spanning the ORF for the δAg was subjected to RT-PCR, cloning, and sequencing. The figure shows 10 sequences deduced for genomic RNA in relationship to the small δAg wild-type sequence of Kuo et al., using the same numbering system (21). Highlighted in gray are the changes at nt 1012 and 1290 that occurred multiple times and are discussed in the text. The nonhighlighted changes did not occur more than twice. Note that the 3 nt changes on sequences III and VI, in addition to that at nt 1290, were silent in terms of the predicted amino acid sequence.