Quasispecies of hepatitis C virus in serum and in three different parts of the liver of patients with chronic hepatitis

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been known to infect hosts as a quasispecies. Several reports have shown this using serum samples, but there is little information about quasispecies in the liver. In this study, we evaluated quasispecies in serum and in three different parts of the liver in eight patients with varying severity of chronic hepatitis C. The nucleotide diversity of HCV was different in each sample, ranging from 0.37% to 4.1%. The nucleotide sequence diversity present in serum was significantly higher than that in liver (p < 0.05) in five of eight patients, and the diversity was statistically lower in two patients (p < 0.01). A significant difference in the nucleotide diversity among liver samples taken from the same patient (intrahepatic nucleotide diversity) was found in four patients. Univariate analysis found that only the histological stage was correlated with intrahepatic nucleotide diversity (p < 0.05). These genetic compartmentalizations of HCV quasispecies within the liver may be closely related to the viral life cycle and the pathogenesis of persistent infection by HCV.