Figure 2.

Antiviral effect of GE4. (a–c). Immunodetection of HCV E2 protein in HCV-infected Huh7 cells. Control (b) or GE4-transfected (c) Huh7 cells were grown on glass coverslips and incubated with 50-fold diluted JFH1 stock for 2 days. Non-infected cells (a) were used as negative control (X bar = 25 µm). (d) Post-infection kinetics of HCV RNA copy number in GE4-transfected Huh7 cells. Control or GE4-transfected Huh7 cells were incubated with undiluted JFH1 stock for 2 h at 37°C. After extensive washes, the cells were incubated further for 4, 18 and 38 h at 37°C. At the indicated post-infection time, total RNA was extracted and JFH1 RNA copies were measured by qRT–PCR and normalized to total RNA. The results are expressed as the percentage of normalized JFH1 copy number of control cells (mean ± SEM of two independent experiments).