FIGURE 9.

Functionality of CD81/CD82 chimeras in HCV infection. A, Huh-7w7 cells stably expressing CD81/CD82 chimeras were infected with HCVcc and infection levels were evaluated by flow cytometry. Cells were double stained by using anti-CD81 and anti-NS5 mAbs, as described under “Experimental Procedures.” A representative double staining dot plot of each cell line is shown in A. Huh-7w7 cells transfected with the pcDNA3.1 empty vector were used as negative controls. In B results are presented as relative percentages to full-length CD81 expressing cells and reported as the mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments.