Figure 4.

RNA elements within the positive-strand hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome and its negative-strand replication intermediate. The HCV genome organization is represented on the top as in Figure 1. A magnification of three regions within the positive-strand (+) RNA are illustrated below, each representing predicted RNA structures. Long-range RNA–RNA interactions are indicated with dashed arrows, whereas predicted binding sites of miR-122 are shown as gray rectangles. Structures within the negative-strand (−) RNA are shown on the bottom. Alternative nomenclatures of the structures are given in parentheses. (RNA stem-loop (SL) structures are adapted from data in Niepmann et al. 2018 and Bartenschlager et al. 2013.)