Intrahepatic expression of HCV core by transgenic mice. A, Diagram of the HCV core(+) transgene construct. The HCV core gene was inserted downstream of the Alb promoter. The dotted box indicates cDNA encoding the HCV core protein. B, Expression of core protein in core(+) mice. Liver samples from core(+) and core(−) mice were prepared for Western blot analysis using anti-core Ab. C, Liver-specific expression of core mRNA. Various tissues harvested from core(+) mice were used to determine the mRNA expression of the core gene by RT-PCR. As a control, reverse transcriptase was omitted from the indicated liver tissue samples (−RT). H, Heart; I, intestine; K, kidney; Li, liver; L, lung; S, spleen; T, thymus.