Fig. S3.

Genetic diversity of the HCV quasispecies within the E1/E2 region outside the HVR1 in serum and multiple liver areas of patients with HCC and controls with non-HCC cirrhosis. Genetic diversity (distance among variants) within the viral quasispecies, as measured by mean Hamming distance, in serum and liver of HCC patients and controls. HCC patients were divided according to the drop in intrahepatic HCV RNA as pattern 1 (<2 logs; patients 1–5) or pattern 2 (>2 logs; patients 6–8). Patient numbers are the same as in Fig. 1 E and F. Data represent the mean ± SEM of the results obtained from all patients within each group. The difference was significant when the livers of patients with non-HCC cirrhosis were compared both with the tumorous tissue (P = 0.002) and with the surrounding nontumorous tissue (P = 0.0035) of HCC patients.