Fig. 1.

Growth of LBPR-0379 in cultures of HepG2/C3A cells. Cell cultures were inoculated with a 10 % faecal suspension or with serum from a chronically infected patient and incubated at 37 °C. Total medium was harvested and replaced with fresh medium on the indicated days post-infection. Harvested medium was filtered through a 0.45 µm filter and stored at −80 °C. Thawed medium (100 µl) was plated on a monolayer of HepG2/C3A cells in eight-well chamber slides and the number of f.f.u. was determined by immunofluorescence microscopy as described previously (Shukla et al., 2011). Day of harvest is given next to each point. Agarose gels of RT-PCR products from the faeces, serum and cell culture medium at the time of peak infectious virus release are shown next to the molecular masses of DNA markers. In the medium, viral genome titres were ~10⁶-fold higher than infectious virus titres (see text).