FIG 1.

Generation of an SDSM library of infectious HCV and selection of growth-adaptive mutations. (A) Summary of the strategy used to generate the SDSM E2 library. Three hundred twenty degenerate (NNN) primer sets were used to randomize each codon in the ectodomain of E2, excluding cysteine residues. These plasmid libraries were grouped into sets of 10 sequential codons. E1-E2 fragments amplified by PCR from these plasmid pools were used to generate 32 pools of mutant viruses. (B) Amplicon sequencing results for the plasmid libraries. The frequency of mutant codons at each position within the library is shown. The ideal mutant frequency is 10% using our approach (red dashed line).