FIG 5.

Relative replication capacities of each variant at various concentrations of simeprevir. wt HCV RNA or HCV RNA encoding NS3 variants, such as Q80K, Q80R, R155K, Q80K+R155K, Q80R+R155K, D168A, or D168V in H77S.3/GLuc2A, was transfected into Huh-7.5 cells. The medium was collected 8 h after transfection and replaced with fresh medium containing only DMSO or simeprevir at 100, 250, 500, 750, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000 nM at 24-h intervals thereafter until 96 h. The secreted GLuc activity in the medium 8 h and 96 h after transfection was determined, and the GLuc activity at 96 h was normalized to that at 8 h for each variant. The normalized GLuc activity was further normalized to that of the wt without simeprevir, set to be 100%. Error bars show the standard deviations from three independent transfections.