Figure 1.

Genetic organization and structurally conserved RNA domains of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome. (A) Diagram showing the genetic organization of the viral genome with the 5′ and 3′ UTRs are flanking the single open reading frame (ORF). Viral structural and non-structural (NS) proteins and their functions are indicated. The numbering corresponds to codon positions in the ORF according to the HCV Con1 isolate, genotype 1b. (B) Diagram of the secondary structure model of the viral RNA genome. Known conserved secondary structural domains are designated by their names. The color code and labels at the bottom indicate where each stem-loop is located. The translation starts and stop codons are marked by arrows.