FIG 9.

Inhibition of HCV infection by anti-hCLDN1 MAbs in vivo. (A) In vivo HCV infection procedure using human liver-chimeric mice. These mice were treated with control IgG or an anti-hCLDN1 MAb, i.e., 3A2 or 7A5, using the indicated amounts, via intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection. HCV (genotype 1b; 10⁴ copies) was used for infections in these experiments. (B) HCV RNA contents of sera were determined by qRT-PCR at the indicated time points. The dotted line indicates the detection limit. The arrows show the times of injection of MAbs. P values were 0.019, 0.121, 0.069, 0.043, and 0.044 for 3A2 and 0.019, 0.123, 0.219, 0.045, and 0.064 for 7A5 at days 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35, respectively, when the undetected values were considered to be 2 × 10⁴ copies/ml. (C to F) Characteristics of MAb-treated chimeric mice, including body weight (C) and human albumin (D), AST (E), and ALT (F) levels in sera.