Fig. 3. Organization of the HCV genome.

Illustration of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome, which contains only a single open reading frame encoding one polyprotein of about 3,000 amino acids. The structural proteins, which include the core or capsid (C) protein and envelope (E1 and E2) proteins, can be found in the N-terminal region. The C-terminal region contains the nonstructural (NS) proteins that are required at various steps of viral replication. NTR, N-terminal region; NS2, NS3, NS4B, NS5A, NS5B, nonstructural proteins 2, 3, 4B, 5A, 5B, respectively; p7, ion channel; 4A, nonstructural protein 4A. Adapted from ref.⁹³, Springer Nature Limited.