Homology of E2 Gene in 8 Child-Mother Pairs Infected with Hepatitis C Virus
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ROU LI, KOHACHIRO SUGIYAMA, KENJI GOTO, YOSHISHIGE MIYAKE and YOSHIRO WADA
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Department of Pediatrics, Nagoya City University Medical School, Nagoya 467
The frequency of genetic homology of hepatitis C virus (HCV) E2 gene in 8 child-mother pairs was investigated. The route of HCV infection of all children suggested mother-to-child infection by their past history. In this study, we analyzed at least 5 complementary DNA (cDNA) clones for each case. In 6 of the 8 (75%) child-mother pairs, for the region between hypervariable region (HVR)-1 and HVR-2, the similarity of the nucleotide sequence of all 5 cDNA clones between each child and the mother was higher than that between the child and the other children, the other mothers and the sequences from GenBank. One of the 8 (13%) child-mother pairs showed a great similarity in parts of all cDNA clones. This was also confirmed by phylogenetic analyses of the sequences of cDNA clones from families and that from GenBank. These results suggested that the homology search of nucleotide sequence of this region was useful to confirm mother-to-child transmission of HCV.
Key words---
gene analysis; HCV infection; mother-to-infant transmission; phylogenetic analysis
© 1997 Tohoku University Medical Press
Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 1997, 183, 197-210
Address for reprints:
Dr. Kohachiro Sugiyama, Department of Pediatrics, Nagoya City University Medical School, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467, Japan.
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