Figure 3.

Immunoblot and RNA analysis of GCV-resistant HeLa-5′tk reporter cells after transduction with single ribozymes. Relative levels of HCV core protein, normalized to β-actin, present in protein lysate (15 μg) from ganciclovir-selected single Rz-transduced reporter cells. Signals for β-actin were used to normalize the core protein signals. The activity of the RzBR1 control (lane 2) was set as 100%. Parental cells expressing the bicistronic vector 5′tk (lane 1) lack core protein expression derived from transduction with the retroviral ribozyme construct. Fifteen micrograms of total RNA isolated from GCV-resistant cells were analyzed by Northern blotting. HCV core RNA was normalized to GAPDH, and the ratio of core protein/core RNA transcript is expressed as percent of the negative control. The data are presented as mean and SEM of three experiments.