Table 1. Limiting-dilution analysis of HVR diversity during acute infection.

Virus genotype was inferred from the sequence of the ORF2 region of the virus genome.

Patient	Age/sex	Presentingsymptoms	Peak ALT(U l−1)	Recent travel history	Virus genotype	No. ofsequencesobtained	Variablesites*	Meandiversity(%)†	Syn‡	Nsyn‡
2	29/M	Jaundice, fever		Indiansubcontinent	1	21	1	0.08	1	0
7	55/F	Jaundice	2989	Spain	3	5	0	0	0	0
101	62/M	Jaundice	2881	None	3	6	0	0	0	0
102	58/M	Jaundice	2245	None	3	20	4	0.20	2	2
103	40/M	Jaundice	6185	Spain	3	28	0	0	0	0
104	25/M	Fulminant hepatitis	4121	India	1	22	5	0.30	2	3
21§	55/M	Jaundice	1993	None	3	21	25	2.6	19	7
					3	A: 17	3	0.14	1	2
					3	B: 4	1	0.40	1	0
22	68/F	Abnormal liver function	4023	Spain	3	18	1	0.20	0	1

^*No. of variable sites amongst sequence set.

^†Mean p distance amongst sequence set.

^‡Syn, no. of synonymous substitutions; Nsyn, no. of non-synonymous substitutions.

^§For patient 21, the diversity amongst the two populations (A and B) of virus sequences detected is also shown separately.