Fig 2.

Influence of intragenotypic glycoprotein chimeras on the production of HCV infectious particles. (A) Schematic representation of the parental Jc1 and JFH1 genomes (top) and the intragenotypic glycoprotein chimeras (bottom). JFH1 and J6 sequences are depicted as white and gray boxes, respectively. JFH1-derived 5′ and 3′ nontranslated regions are drawn as thick black lines. Note that the junction site of J6 and JFH1 in the Jc1 chimera resides in the N-terminal membrane domain of NS2. (B) Huh7.5 cells transfected with RNA of full-length chimeras. After 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h, cell supernatants were harvested, and extracellular infectivity was determined by TCID₅₀ titration on Huh7.5 cells. (C) Intra- and extracellular core levels from cells transfected with the HCV genomes specified in panel A at 48 posttransfection. Data from a representative experiment conducted with six replicates (TCID₅₀ assay) and two replicates (core ELISA), representative of three independent experiments in total, are shown.